Watch The Throne

Listen to Never Let Me Down

I love Jay-Z. Dude has been going HAM since I was too young to even know about shit. As I came up, I watched and listened to S.Carter, and learned a lot. There’s a reason dude named 3 of his albums The Blueprint! I respect champions, and in rap, Jay is that dude. In fact, Sean Carter is that dude; other rappers may claim to be equal or superior in rap steez, but no one is touching Hov on the grands scale: dude is so paid!

Peep this: Hov is like “I’m rich! Booyakashaaaah niggauuuuh!”and somehow this motivates otherwise respectable, intelligent people to be like “blah blah blah,” to which Jigga responds ‘Wanna buy some CDs, some kicks and a night you won’t remember? Plus my lil bruh’s a little bit twisted… grab that also.”
And the same haters cop the shit. And then Hov and Ye make a song about that too. Jeez!

When I was younger it always flustered me: Who is buying all this music? No one likes Jay-Z, and Nas is waaaaay better, so how is th dude still so much richer than me? Quite frankly, white folks don’t  support hip-hop like that- not enough to maintain the relevance of an act that talks mainly about black people issues (and using the dreaded nigga word all the time, nigga) So many people have bad things to say about Kanye West I been worried about how dude would afford his chill-pills, let alone all those retarded upgrades… One day it struck me: dumb people do and say dumb shit!

That means they’ll say stupid stuff about good music, and then turn around and maybe buy the physical album as well as the Itunes. Plus hitting up the concerts. That’s no problem by me, see, I appreciate superior music and I love to see superior artists win. In return for my time and money, I expect dope raps, dope beats and good concepts. Drizzy Drake (Tdot) explained quite frankly that he was going to make people cop a blank disk of buzz alone… then did it. Come on, folks it was like two extra songs on top of an already free release! Awesome from Drake’s point of view. Spectacular from my point of view. The thing is, not every rapper can deliver that more than once or twice, but Jay has. Ye has. Drake has indeed admitted this in verse.

I was talking to my homeboy about Kobe a few weeks ago and I said something on the fly that we both really appreciated: Kobe Bryant doesn’t play to win games anymore, he plays for rings. Most players are happy to even get into the play-offs, but Kobe already has too many championship rings to wear at once. Most people couldn’t even lift $15,000.00 worth of Victory, let alone getting into fistfuls. It sort of confuses me when people get a release like H.A.M. and a leak like That’s My Bitch, and then act like it’s not Kanye and Jay-Z on them joints… That’s like telling me Kobe ain’t gonna do so great next season. By whose standards? Considering that Ye just put out His Beautiful Twisted Fantasy, I’m fairly confident that there’s at least a little power left over for a record with his own hero. Plus, have you heard the raps? Have you heard the violins? Did you notice the stats? Kanye tends to do pretty well for himself.

Thing is, this H.A.M. thing ain’t new. DJ Khaled released Go Hard with Ye a few years ago. Crazy. Kanye clearly goes hard. As does Jay on the remix. Comparing the two, I’d say Ye goes crazier, but that makes sense- Jay ain’t nutty batso he just knows how the fuck to handle his. Kanye West has something to prove: He’s the best, and until the very last Kanye non-lover is tracked down and taught good music by Yeezy, the boy will spaz on tape decks. That means I’m only curious about what flows Hova has for us; it’s not like Young don’t spit!

Historically, when have JaYeezy failed to produce stellar tracks together? Remember The Bounce? That was a good first look, and Kanye has simply grown more confident over the years. Regardless, and I really can’t stress this enough: Hip-Hop is not like the league or drug dealing. There can be more than one legitimate dynasty at a time. It’s not as if in 2003 I was like “Man this 50 Cent guy is cool but I can’t buy it cuz I got that College Dropout.” Well, maybe my broke-ass twelve-year-old self said that, but legitimate members of society and the folks who actually sway charts did not. In fact, I liked both at the time, which was a win for Hip-Hop; I can’t pick and choose who the obvious champion is this season. Come crunch time, Lebron and Wade and the boys just didn’t cut it, and now they have to wait a whole year to stake their claim again.

Rappers can make music whenever they want, with whom, against anyone, anywhere, especially thanks to ever more insane technological advances. The bar can be raised and reset by anyone at any moment in this game, and a compilation of alley-oops and a perfect triangles would be perfect right now. It’s cool to see two giants on one team.

This right here is two champions spitting big words with meaning. Stories and fairy tales were cool when we were younger, now raps with dope instrumentals behind them are what we need; how could you shun them? Look at the figures! Take out some time and listen to the words and see what these dudes are saying; shut your eyes and let the melodies uplift you. Take them words of advice from these niggas that made it and feel good for them because you know you can do the exact same thing! The thing is, anyone can go for the throne, and if you look around, it looks like a lot of dudes are about to go in. Big Sean just dropped fire, Jay Electronica just announced that the second act in his magical saga is complete, J.Cole’s project finally has a legit title and a release date, and Drake has certainly been making sound waves from Marvin’s Room lately. Besides in Sean’s case, no one knows yet what any of these dudes really has in store. To me, history is the only way to tell what the future will be; therefore I’ma watch The Throne. Maybe David will come out of the woodwork this year.