Official Watch the Throne Thread...

[TRILLip Brooks]

am i the only one who liked that's my bitch

 

[_Goldie_]

LOL @ dem havin a joint called "sweet baby jesus"

 

[MC The Rapper]

I read the review on this site and lets just say i will probably not listen to it. When they say get rid of all your expectations and people won't get it in the review that means its shitty . Good music is Good Music there is nothing to get , it sounds good or it doesn't

 

[ShencotheMC]

am i the only one who liked that's my bitch

Nah, that joint got a nice vibe to it

 

[Mr.LV]

First day cop not even a question.

 

[ShencotheMC]

The only way they could describe it is castle music? Awwww shiiiiiit. This about to be epic as fuck

 

[Ishi]

smh at this religious bullshit ruining this thread

.........................

See that is what I'm saying fuck is there a RnR for...... ain't no one trying to hear that in the reason

 

[Kame]

bunch of reviews out from last night

With Ye in Paris, Hov held an exclusive private listening session for Watch The Throne last night NYC last night. Peep, YN’s faux hawk in the far right corner? Ha!

According to Billboard, Jay played 11 tracks with Odd Future’s Frank Ocean on two. Hov indicated that it took three stages for the album to be completed. He says some records were even scrapped for being too grandiose. The recording process stretched three continents (Australia, NY, LA, Paris) with him and Ye recording entirely in-person. He prefers to not release a traditional single, Jay hopes to shoot a video for the Beyonce-featured track, “Lift Off”.

Jay also revealed that he’s already two tracks in for his next solo album with four concepts complete. One of them will feature Frank Ocean.

 

[Kame]

On July 8, 2011, Jay-Z hosted an intimate listening session for the looming, game changing, genre bending Hip-Hop opus Watch The Throne. Roughly 20 people were invited to the exclusive event, which interestingly enough included the two teenage New Yorkers that purchased the first two copies of the album on Amazon.com's preorder. They were there along with their parents, who were gracious enough to tolerate a long evening for the sake of their kids. Where to begin? There was so much to absorb of the evening so I'll write this similar to the way Watch The Throne was crafted...free-flowing and without rules.

There were some ground rules for the session though. 1) No live tweeting. We could say we were there and that's about it. One journo from The Fader was kicked out with the swiftness for tweeting specifics. 2) No quoting exact lyrics in write ups. Why? Because, although we heard a lot, Watch The Throne is not finished. Lyrics may change. 3) No specific song titles. They aren't set either.

So, here is the song-by-song rundown of Watch The Throne.

Song # 1

In the first song, Beyonce completely blasts off to a beat laced with heavy synths. Kanye bursts onto the track, weaving in and out of autotune and various vocal distortions. Very off beat, but in a good way. Jay-Z follows up flowing to very short or truncated verses. Clearly, Beyonce is the ancho to a song that ebbs and flows until it blasts off in a spaceship counting down. (This was actually the second song, but the first seemed to be a partial record that got hacked off.)

Song # 2

Bouncy is the first word that comes to mind with Song # 3. The track almost sounds like a traditional southern Hip-Hop record. Jay's flowing much faster, sort of in the vein of "Big Pimpin'." Jay's rapping double time and then yields to 'Ye, who raps at a slower pace. The song concludes with the crash of a slowed down menacing beat, reminscent of 80s instrumentalists Art of Noise.

By now, Jay is bouncing to the beats that he's manning the session from the Mac Book. He stops most of the songs abruptly even.

Song # 3

The fourth song begins with a long, bluesy Otis Redding sample...which gets chopped up lovely. Jay and 'Ye go back and forth, almost bar for bar. Straight spittin.... I personally felt is was similar to the way Biggie and Jay spit over "Brooklyn's Finest," but my homey Aqua completely disagreed. Nevertheless, they went in.

Song # 4

Or is that song 4? Anyway, the next song was wrought with melancholy if you only went according to the track. Upon further examination, Jay-Z and Kanye trade lyrics about raising their future kids. To attempt to regurgitate the content wouldn't do the song justice. The song is a very honest and vulnerable look at something the pair long for, but not commonly addressed.

Song # 5

Song # 6 had the whole room bobbing their head in unison to a slow, dragging epic track. Feels European, the United Kingdom to be specific.

Song # 6

This one was a joint where Kanye and Jay rap over a singer's voice trading bars every 2-4 lines.

Song # 7

This song was my absolute favorite. The beat went super hard with Kanye and Jay asking aggressively, "Who gon' stop me, huh?" This song was rooted in a bassline that was deeply monophonic. At the end, the pair throw the listeners for a loop and jump off the path. Suddenly, the beat changes, random instruments come in and out of this living, breathing song.

Song # 8

Song 8 feels very African in nature. Kanye comes in singing for a couple bars and then Jay starts rapping. Interestingly enough, they are rapping about Black on Black violence. Black Panther Fred Hampton gets a mention. An unlikely positive song.

Song # 9

Sounds like Frank Ocean is the new golden boy...maybe? Malcolm X, Betty Shabazz, Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott get nods on song 9. This inspirational song references Jesus and centers on making it as a success in America. Kanye used a particularly clever metaphor. He raps about making his beats and selling them to Jay at the early part of his career. But they says he now "gets high on his own supply," the dope being his own music.

Song # 10

Number 10 offers the operatic synths laced with a rock sample talking about love. The track goes hard. The beats elevates and suddenly...the album is over. The ending is more abrupt than anything I've ever heard.

Epilogue:

Jay gets asked if this version of the album was the regular or the deluxe version. The Brooklyn don doesn't speak on it. He simply cues up two more songs that knock. Jay then says, "Does that answer your question?" Room explodes into spontaneous laughter. Jay also let the room hear a song with Swizz Beatz that he admitted might not make the album. He also indicated that "H.A.M.," the first song he and Kanye released may not make the album either.

Overall, Watch The Throne is one of the most interesting pieces of Hip-Hop I've heard in a long time. Many people asked is it "classic" or is it "dope as expected." I believe, to properly enjoy the album, they are going to need to shed expectations and erase what they know. I already can see there will be a segment of the population that simple will not "get" this album.

But, that is the beauty of Watch The Throne. Everybody won't love it and others will swear by it. It will be the topic of debates and hate. Through it all, its very cool to see Hip-Hop artist evolving creatively. Fearlessly.

 

[Kame]

eanTheROBOT SeanTheROBOT
#WatchTheThrone samples so far: Cassius - I Love You So, Flux Pavilion - I Can't Stop, Andrea Bocelli - Por ti Volare.
3 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

They sample Otis Redding as well

 

[mancill*chicago]

Should be a dope album.

Killuminati Movement:

You Aint Pac (New Video)

 

[Kame]

Damn at the exclusives im dropping here...........

 

[DMTxTHC]

"MJ at summerjam, Obama on the text,
y’all should be afraid of what I’m gonna do next." - Jay-z

Thank God we got a friend in Jesus! Do you know Him?

"Jesus can't save you, life starts when the church ends"-Jigga, lol

 

[DMTxTHC]

Damn at the exclusives im dropping here...........

Props to Kame for dropping exclusives

 

[IceBergTaylor]

Damn to two guys who got those preorders and was at the listening shit. That coulda been me.

 

[Kame]

*salutes........

 

[Kame]

Im debating preordering this shit on their site when I know theyll have it in bulk in stores when it come out

 

[Kame]

After months of nothing, information has started pouring in about Kanye West and Jay-Z's collaborative album, Watch the Throne. Earlier in the week, the album was made available for pre-order; last night, Jay-Z held a listening session for select journalists at New York City's Mercer Hotel, and several sources spilled some tantalizing details...

According to Billboard, the listening session lasted about three hours and included 11 songs slated to appear on Watch the Throne, as well as a few that may or may not make the cut. Songs mentioned include "No Church" and "That Your Bitch", the latter of which was not played but, according to producer Mike Dean, is currently in the process of being mixed by Q-Tip. In addition to the previously reported Beyoncé feature on the tentatively titled cut "Lift Off" (which might get an accompanying video, despite Jay's wishes to release the album without a single attached), R&B singer and Odd Future affiliate Frank Ocean sings on two songs. Jay also mentioned that Ocean appears on a song for his forthcoming follow-up to 2009's The Blueprint 3, for which two songs have been completed.
According to MTV, one song features "verses directed to [Jay-Z and Kanye's] hypothetical unborn sons." And while the pair originally planned to make the whole album an over-the-top sonic blowout a la operatic first single "H.A.M.", they later decided to scale things back a bit. "It's just so big and so much, you don't want that shit screaming in your house," Jay-Z said of "H.A.M.". Also, Pitchfork contributor and GQ editor Sean Fennessey Tweeted that the album features samples of Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness", Luciano Pavarotti's version of "Ave Maria", and UK dubstep producer Flux Pavilion's ultra-wobbly "I Can't Stop".

There's no set release date for Watch the Throne as of yet, with Jay-Z only saying that it is "coming soon." In an admission that might explain the delays surrounding the project, he also said that there's been at least three versions of the album recorded, with the one previewed last night being the third. In addition, Jay dropped a fascinating anecdote regarding Blueprint 3 single "Run This Town": Kanye tried to convince him not to release the song as a single because he didn't think it would be a hit, based on general reaction that took place at a barbecue.

 

[Kame]

For the uninitiated, in hip-hop there is a troubling but not uncommon practice called the listening event. Journalists, associates, record label employees, hangers-on, and others gather in a hall or a studio, and mingle while an artist's new album is played. It is often difficult to hear, making reviews near impossible, and ultimately an ineffective tool for promotion. It's more like a poorly-catered mixer for muckety-mucks given a chance to speak ill of this project or that. I have attended somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 of these events in my life. They are terrible. But of course, Jay-Z doesn't do terrible.

So in honor of Watch the Throne, he and Kanye West's first shared-billing collaborative album, Jay did what he always does, which is turn a formality into intimacy and dispense with the trappings. In a cramped room on the second floor of the Mercer Hotel, a dozen or so reporters and editors, along with Jay's publicist, manager, trainer (!), and assistant, and two album pre-order contest winners—imagine Willy Wonka's golden ticket, only it looks like this—huddled up. Jay was decked in standard casual gear: crisp black denim, a white tee, white Stan Smiths, and a suddenly au courant Yankees snapback—the event actually kicked off an hour late because the guest of honor was at Yankee Stadium hoping to catch Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit. (Alas, The Captain sits at 2,998, foiling a perfect night.) Without much fanfare, Jay-Z pressed play on the black MacBook in his lap and the album began. Some highlights:

-"No Church," the first track of 11 played, one of the few referred to by name, and Jay's favorite at the moment, is a dramatic, dynamic treatise on sin and hypocrisy. Jay explicitly reflects on Socrates question, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" Deep! Odd Future affiliate Frank Ocean sings the massive, gospel-tinged, Christian-baiting chorus.

-"Lift Off." The second song played; Jay said he has misgivings about releasing a single for the album, but since they likely will, this would be it. Also, his wife Beyoncé appears on the (literally) space shuttle-launching chorus. So that's nice.

-"That Shit Crack," a possible title for this trash-talking anthem that finds Kanye rhyming, "Prince William ain't doin' right if you ask me / 'cause I'd marry (Mary) Kate and Ashley."

-"Otis," one of the most purely soulful songs the two have ever made together, features a pounding sample of Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness" up front. A clear standout and the first one I wanted to hear again.

-During the hilarious, audacious "Italian Living," which features a sample of "Ave Maria," of all things, a journalist was booted from the hotel room for breaking the evening's one rule: No live-tweeting. Idiot. One memorable #hashtag rap couplet from Kanye on the same song: "I'm about to say something crazy / John Galliano."

We could go on. There's a devastating song rapped to Kanye and Jay's unborn sons and another called "Black on Black" about intra-racial violence. There's a thwacking dubstep sample and another appearance by the tapped-for-greatness Frank Ocean. When the cycle concluded, Jay opened the floor to a conversation, as he has during recent events of this kind, asking only that reporters put down their notepads and close their iPhones (Some of us didn't). What ensued was a kind of half-professional, half-freewheeling chat. The journalists that knew Jay better were freer in their discourse, while the novices asked earnest, interview-y questions. Jay-Z, who has a lot of experience being the calmest, cleverest person in the room, had fun jabbing at everyone—at one point I interrupted one of his responses before he'd finished and he playfully chided me, letting off his trademark cackle-chuckle. These are the times when you don't mind being mocked.

During the conversation, Jay addressed his and many fans' disappointment with the first single, "H.A.M.," which was not played and may not make the final cut. He mentioned that this iteration of the album was the third, after two scrapped rounds of songwriting and recording, blaming ambition and expectation for the false starts. He also said that the sessions were often bizarre and star-packed, at one point recalling one night that featured the celebrated Givenchy designer Riccardo Tischi (who also crafted Watch The Throne's gold-embossed cover), British women's wear star (and Kanye obsession) Phoebe Philo, and Russell Crowe. Sounds like a fun room.

The recording of this album also inspired a new Jay-Z solo album, for which he has already completed two songs and is honing four more concepts—one of the contest winners actually nabbed the night's biggest scoop, which is that Ocean will also appear on the first single from that forthcoming album. Jay also said that Kanye begged him not to release "Run This Town," the first single from 2009's smash The Blueprint 3, because it didn't go over well at a Heavy Hitters barbeque. He lost that battle, obviously. Near the conversation's end, Jay gently criticized President Obama when asked about his performance: "Numbers don't lie. Unemployment is pretty high. It's fucked up, but he's trying not to be the angry black man."

Throughout, he maintained his typical prom-king-with-a-sense-of-humor veneer. Few artists are as at ease in this sort of environment as Jay-Z. Whether Watch the Throne lives up to whatever impossible expectations hang over it—and in some ways, it does—it would be tough to walk out of this scene feeling better about Shawn Corey Carter. He's a crafty one, that guy.

Read More http://www.gq.com/style/blogs/the-g...nye-wests-watch-the-throne.html#ixzz1RWZNIAw6

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[Kame]

These guys pick up the best samples though......