Jay-Z and Kanye West are only contributing to their already attained stadium status with their highly anticipated joint album, “Watch the Throne.”
Individually, each artist has solidified his spot among the greatest rappers alive in most hip-hop debates. However, as everyone just beared witness to, when they come together, there is no extinguishing their flames. Firing away at lames and naysayers, they sit atop their nest of success and watch the millions roll in.
The album highlights several issues surrounding politics and the troubles that have overtaken the black community which, in some ways, are equivalent to such events as “the Holocaust,” according to Kanye.
“Watch the Throne” allows listeners to sit back and not only marvel at their achievements, but enjoy the fruits of their labor and hopefully, meet them at the top.
The song “No Church in the Wild,” is arguably one of the best on the album, which evokes the feeling that they’re unstoppable. “Church” is the metaphorical sanctuary that contains the door to a savior from the pit of the world.
This album makes several references to the wild or jungle, being a place in which you’re on your own. “The Wild” can be relative to the rap game, the world or wherever you see fit but no matter the context, they are portraying the notion that no one can save you. God is generally the one entity that is able to rescue you, but “…what’s a God to a non-believer, who don’t believe in, anything?”
“New Day” is the focal point of the album. It is where wrong is held accountable by fault. Fault meets change. And change equals better. Kanye speaks on his outlandish opinions, bad choice in women, and unwillingness to constrain his tongue. This track was penned with intent to right their wrongs so that their unborn sons can have a chance to undone those “dropped the ball”-isms that their fathers did with them. Though neither of their fathers were present in their lives, they are preparing to not make those same mistakes. Jay-Z apologizes to his son for already ruining his life, in that a sense of normalcy is unfathomable. He gives him fatherly advice that he never received as a child. This track is perhaps the most vulnerable on the album; blending introspection with promises for the future, all with hopes for a “new day.”
With the track records and album sales of these two artists, is it wrong for them to ask, “Who Gon Stop Me?”
Emerald Thomas is a fourth-year student majoring in psychology. He can be reached at ET682650@wcupa.edu.