Album Review of Watch the Throne by Kanye West and Jay-Z

Watch The Throne is an album that millions of Kanye West and Jay-Z fans have been awaiting. Kanye first announced the project one year ago on his personal Twitter page. Initially, the project was supposed to be released as an EP that included just four tracks. However, the project was later extended to a full-length album including exclusive tracks that the two would record as a joint effort. The pairing of these two Rap stars is directly responsible for such pairings as Lil Wayne and Drake, Cam'ron and Vado and Royce Da 5'9 and Eminem. However, the one noticeable difference is the fact that Kanye West and Jay-Z collectively have sold far more records than any other Rap combination in music today. As such, fans have amazingly high expectations of the Watch The Throne release. I recently received a copy of the upcoming CD for review and I was very excited to finally have a listen at the material that has eluded fans for such a long period of time.

First, it is only proper that I begin this review by stating that two of my favorite CDs ever released would be Blueprint 3 and Dark Twisted Fantasy. Since the material on those two projects was nothing short of amazing, I expected that this CD would be in the same ballpark. Ideally, these two albums would come together to create a piece of art that is unique and high in lyrical content. However, Watch The Throne falls short of that expectation while also missing the benchmarks set by their solo projects. Kanye West and Jay-Z simple fail to mesh as a pair on this project and that hurts the overall quality. Unlike Drake and Lil Wayne, they do not have natural chemistry. Nor do they flow together as well as Cam'ron and Vado. In fact, it seems as though most of the material was recorded without the pair actually having to be present at the same location. The fact that the songs do not come together as well as they should really takes away from the feelings this album attempts to provide the listen with. There are 16 tracks on the CD in total including older tracks like HAM and The Joy. The standout tracks include Nias In Paris, New Day, Welcome To The Jungle., No Church In The Wild, Murder To Excellence, Including the older tracks, there are 6/16 tracks worth owning. As such, Watch The Throne scores a disappointing 2.5/5.