Jay-Z and Kanye West's forthcoming album may be calledWatch the Throne, but soon enough fans will be listening, not just looking, and it will have been worth the wait. MTV
Thursday night after leaving his beloved Yankees, Jay took part in a little New York History of his own: the hosting of his ultra exclusive Watch the Throne listening session.
King Hov came straight from the Yankee game (where he was hoping to see Jeter hit his 3,000 hit, which he did today 7/9/11) to the famed Mercer Hotel, where he and Ye have turned a second floor suite into a studio, for the very secretive recording sessions, for Watch The Throne.
With his Yankee hat cocked back, and his black MacBook Pro on his lap the King held court. Some of the selected media outlets who were invited to the private session were: Rolling Stone, MTV, BET & Billboard, just to name a few. Jay was said to be he usual cool. After playing 11 tracks, which he said could change, he took questions. As far as the first single he says, it's looking like it will be, Lift Off.
If "Liftoff" isn't a chart hit within the next year, I'll be surprised. Jay-Z and Kanye get downright triumphal over synthesized fanfare à la West's "All of the Lights," and Beyoncé's anthemic hook is the type of thing that makes radio programmers go weak in the knees. Huge. --Rolling Stone, on 1st single
Another of the many topics discussed was the length of time it's taken to record and put out the album. We all know how many times Ye has said, this album was coming out. Jay says that the process took so long because, he and Ye wanted to record together rather than via e-mail. The process was so productive that it got his creative juices flowing so much so that he's already recorded two tracks for her next solo LP, which he says are his best first two tracks that he's ever recorded for one of his albums.
The songs were dramatic and boastful, with Jay-Z often taking the lead lyrically, and the collection showcased the differences between the two artists - Jay-Z, the technical marksman, and Kanye, the emotive chest beater. Jay-Z said the two began recording the album last year in England and had recorded in Australia while Jay-Z was on tour, as well as in New York, Paris, and Los Angeles, often in hotel rooms. At least one of the songs played was recorded at New York's Tribeca Grand. --Billboard
The album is available for pre-order now: Life+Times. Also read below for RS's Song Book.
Rolling Stone's Song Book:
1. The first track we heard, tentatively titled "No Church," is Jay-Z's current favorite of the bunch. It's easy to see why. An apocalyptic rumble of a beat backdrops a diabolically earwormy hook (courtesy of Odd Future crooner Frank Ocean) about religion and power. Jay-Z unspools brainy couplets about great thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Jesus, Kanye and himself; Kanye raps about drugs and sex, among other topics.
2. If "Liftoff" isn't a chart hit within the next year, I'll be surprised. Jay-Z and Kanye get downright triumphal over synthesized fanfare à la West's "All of the Lights," and Beyoncé's anthemic hook is the type of thing that makes radio programmers go weak in the knees. Huge.
3. No one boasts like Jay-Z and Kanye West. Here they talk delightful trash over a fearsome beat that grows from icy synthesizer plinks and minimalist snare attack to a fuzzed-out industrial breakdown. Midway through is a bit of sampled dialogue from 2007's goofy comedy Blades of Glory (Kanye's idea): "No one knows what it means," says Will Ferrell, "but it's provocative."
4. Probably the best song we heard last night, bearing the working title "Otis," spins gold from a chopped-up
sample of Otis Redding's classic "Try a Little Tenderness." It's a nice callback to the soul-laced beats Kanye used to give Jay-Z back in 2000 and 2001. ("That's our zone," Jay said later. "That's what we do better than anyone else.") Their rhymes are tricky, showoffy stuff, with the two old friends trading lines like a 21st-century Run-DMC. Every head in the room was nodding by the end of this track.
5. Watch the Throne isn't all braggadocio. This slower, introspective number finds Jay-Z and West both addressing their hypothetical future children. They don't hold back, and the self-doubt and soul-searching in their verses is genuinely moving. I can't recall ever hearing Jay-Z open up quite like this before, not even on "This Can't Be Life." Kanye's verse is pretty special, too – after the playback, Jay-Z said he thinks it's one of Ye's top three performances ever.
6. Back to stunting! A sample of Andrea Bocelli's schmaltzy "Con Te Partirò" gets sped down and mangled into an improbably heavy groove as Jay-Z and Kanye tout their international lifestyle in slick verses. The phrase they chant during the chorus, and presumably the working title for this one, is "Living So Italian." Very catchy. "It was actually fun for us," Jay later explained of this track. "We were laughing."
7. Diced-up vocal snippets and gut-punching bass back aggressive rhymes from Kanye and Jay-Z. One of them references YC's recent hit "Racks on Racks," a nod to the contemporary rap trends this album both embraces and outpaces.
8. A sample of English dubstep producer Flux Pavilion's single "I Can't Stop" comes crashing into an enormous wall of Dirty South synths, and the beat keeps evolving from there. Kanye's opening verse includes a smidgen of Pig Latin, while Jay-Z mythologizes his street-corner-to-corner-office backstory for the ten thousandth time. It's still a damned compelling arc after all these years.
9. Another contemplative interlude, with West thinking about black-on-black crime rates over looped "la la la" harmonies.
10. Frank Ocean's second appearance on the album is another keeper. Hip-hop heads will be singing his honey-voiced, religiously-themed hook all fall. Jay-Z and Kanye keep the thoughtful mood going with verses that revisit their respective rises to fame.
11. More European trend-spotting: A sledgehammer beat built around French house duo Cassius' 2010 single "I Love You So" rolls out while Kanye and Jay-Z indulge in some sullen thoughts regarding unnamed turncoats and ingrates. Slashing violin parts come in on the bridge before the song ends abruptly.
Credit: Rolling Stone, MTV & Billboard
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