Music reviews – Jay-Z and Kanye West: Watch the Throne

Jay-Z & Kanye West
Watch the Throne
Roc-A-Fella

Watch the Throne is incredibly self-indulgent. The title of the album should  tip you off to this, with its incredibly blatant reference to royalty. Whether or not you think Jay-Z and Kanye West are hip-hop royalty, the fact what was originally only supposed to be an EP ended up turning into a full-length LP should be evidence enough of how horrendously egocentric they are. But, who can blame them after putting out an album as spectacular as this? There do not seem to be any songs that are bad, only a handful that aren’t quite as awesome as the other dozen or so. Surprisingly, the tone of the album is predominantly dark, which conflicts with the materially-wealthy-beyond–all-means and seemingly-being-on-top-of-the-world subject matter. There is a sort of tension between the “my-presence-is-a-present” attitude on the surface of the album and the emptiness felt underneath, which results in an incredibly nuanced album that justifies Jay-Z and Kanye’s egocentrism.

Paul Bogdan
A&C Writer