Album Review: Jay Z and Kanye West - Watch The Throne

On the inside of the cover in the album booklet for Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch The Throne, you find an image of a faded and slightly worn looking but still triumphant American flag. This is an album about America itself. It is made up of equal parts patriotic pride, fuelled by the stratospheric success that these two talented rappers have enjoyed and their admiration for American musical history, and disgust at the violence and injustice still present in a country troubled by its past and present mistakes. This paradox make the latter parts of the album as lyrically compelling and musically captivating as you would expect from two such distinguished and consistently challenging artists. It is somewhat of a shame, however, that the album takes roughly seven tracks to get into its real thematic content. Watch The Throne is an album divided down the middle between a first half that is slick and well-produced but essentially meaningless, concentrating almost exclusively on boasting about their wealth, talent and number of sexual conquests, and a truly provocative and powerful second act.

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