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25. Watch the Throne - Jay-Z and Kanye West (2011)

Rap

Watch the Throne was inevitable culmination of years of collaboration between Jay-Z and Kanye West, who originally made a name for himself producing for Jay-Z. Released in 2011, just a year after Kanye’s prolific My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Watch the Throne picks up right where he left off, furthering his unorthodox agenda as a producer while continuing to advance his trademark, sample-heavy style, which reaches new heights on tracks like “Otis”, “Gotta Have It” and “New Day”.

After a handful of one-off collaborations, we had long known that Jay and ‘Ye were a match made in heaven, but Watch the Throne definitely exceeded expectations. It’s a project that doesn’t take itself too seriously, while still going H.A.M. on every track. It features some of Kanye’s better bars (“That’s My Bitch”), as well as some of Jay-Z’s (“Welcome to the Jungle”, “Who Gon Stop Me?”). Opening track “No Church in the Wild” sets the tone for the record with an emotive assist from Frank Ocean who sings the chorus, casually calling into question “What’s a king to a god? What’s a god to a non-believer?”. Watch the Throne was definitely the pinnacle of the Jay & ‘Ye relationship, not to mention being one of the best rap albums of the decade. 

*image; cover art for the album Watch the Throne by Jay-Z and Kanye West