Let me preface this rant by saying i'm a big fan of Jay-Z and Kanye West. A HUGE fan of both actually. I don't know if anyone heard, but Jay-Z and Kanye West have a CD out together. Of course i'm being facetious. Because unless you were under a rock, in a cave, on Mars, with your fingers in your EARS, you've heard about it. Now when i heard these two heavyweights were getting together for an album, my first thought was, "i hope it's good". Cuz let's be honest, music SUCKS PENITENTIARY BALLS, right now. I mean Hip-Hop is dead, and Pop music is on some retread bullshit. I liked Lady Gaga 20 years ago, when it was Madonna. But i still had high hopes for "Watch The Throne". I mean JAY-Z had a really good CD with the Blueprint 3, and Kanye West is mostly always good for a solid effort. "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" wasn't that good(even though people act like it was. More on that later), but he's a hit maker. First outta the box was H.A.M. For those not in the know, H.A.M. is an acronym for Hard As A Muthafucka. It was absolutely, phucking terrible. It sounds like they rolled into the studio and took a dump on a track and then sent it out to radio stations. The reviews were mixed at best, but everyone whose opinion i respect agreed that the shit was garbage. I bet everyone in the studio was sitting around being phuckin yesmen and fightin' over who would get to juggle their balls, instead of saying what was so painfully obvious. That the song was wack. But i was willing to give them a pass on H.A.M., because these two have been so great in the past. So i was looking forward to the whole CD. I heard "Otis", and was like, alright. This is tight. it's different. They're rappin' abstract. The beat is soulful and cool. I liked it a lot. When W.T.T, dropped, everybody was BIG uppin' it. My girl Shari went out of her way to tell me and i quote, "it's the best CD to come out in the last ten years!" She was incredibly excited about it. When i heard it, i mostly liked it on the first listen. i graded it a B. But it couldn't stand up to the re-listen test. Instead of getting better with each listen, it got worse. NOT a good sign. But the truth was, it didn't matter. Because Watch The Throne wasn't as good as we NEEDED it to be. Lemme elaborate on that. Because music, especially Hip-Hop, is a state of utter shitdom right now, we all needed these two geniuses to be at their VERY best. But they weren't. In fact, in most cases this whole project seemed phoned in. The hype machine at its very best, some critics are lauding this as a collaborative effort between two musical giants that is both groundbreaking and thought provoking. i call bullshit. BULLSHIT i tells ya! People are bumping this in their cars, it's being played in the clubs, and all because of who, they, are. Not because of how good this CD is. WE NEEDED WATCH THE THRONE TO BE GREAT. And it's decent. It's like it's the bottom of the ninth, two outs, and the home team is down two runs. Your 3 and 4th hitters are coming up...AND THEY BOTH HIT SINGLES. Awesome that they got on base, but when you NEEDED them to be great. They weren't. And then the next guy strikes out looking. That's what the music industry is doing right now. Striking out looking.
My guy mp3(Matt Peterson) made a really good point about Watch The Throne. He said that the reason why everybody is acting like it's all that and a bag of chips with the dip, is because we set the bar so high for this album. And the truth is NOBODY likes to be disappointed. So people are lying to themselves to about how much they like this CD. Shari, who said first listen said it was the best thing to drop in the last ten years, has rescinded that statement, saying that it's pretty good, but it doesn't hold up. But her initial reaction is understandable. We want the people who we perceive as great, be that in music, sports, entertainment, or politics, to be great. ALL THE TIME. Especially when we need it the most. If we're forced to admit that they've failed, does that mean that WE'VE failed? Music is a little different. ESPECIALLY NOW. I can't STAND rap right now. I mean PHUCK. EVERYBODY SOUNDS THE SAME. I don't mean, everybody is rappin about the same shit, because they are. Hustlin selling drugs, cars with rims, weed, phuckin random broads. That's every rap song out now. Biggie and 2Pac are rolling around in their graves. I MEAN, THEY ALL SOUND THE SAME. Same inflections, same vocal tone, same accent. And then they all wanna guest star on each other's shit. Ace Hood, Gucci Mane, Wocka Flocka, and Rick Ross are on Wocka's CD produced by Khaled. Then, Gucci Mane, Wocka Flocka, Ace Hood, and Rick Ross are on Gucci's CD produced by Khaled. THEN Gucci Mane, Wocka Flocka, Rick Ross, and Ace Hood are on Hood's CD produced by guess the phuck who? And then Muthafukas wanna act like each song is different. It's the same muthafukas, produced by the same muthafuka, rappin about the same muthafuckin shit!!! AAAAARRRRGHHHH!!! Getting back to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye. The fact that everybody was falling all over themselves to say how great this CD was is astonishing to me. i thought Kanyeezy benefit from what i've been calling an Anti-Backlash. After the whole Taylor Swift incident(which in itself is rantworthy), Kanye was public enemy number one. He was hated. Then after a while, the public started to say, "hey this whole Kanye is a monster thing is getting outta hand. All he did was tell some overrated ass singer she didn't deserve to win. this has gone too far. I bet when his new CD drops it's gonna be off the chain!" And when Power came out, i was totally believing it. But that was the last song from the OLD Kanye. The NEW Kanye, that bullshit Monster and a few other weak tracks, had people rushing to call him a genius. The reason? They NEEDED him to be. They needed him to have a great album to answer for the whole Taylor Swift debacle. He didn't. But it doesn't matter. Lying to ourselves has become the new black in rap music.
Pop music is no better. You're telling me that there's a fundamental difference between what Katy Perry, Ke$ha, and Gaga are saying? Look how cool it is to be a superficial, drunken, whore now! It's empowering! I mean seriously, y'all. How many songs can there possibly be about getting so phucked up, getting drunk, and dancing? Good Lawd, i yearn for the days of Public Enemy, Big Daddy Kane, Common Sense, and The Geto Boys. Anita Baker, Prince, Madonna, and Janet Jackson. But this takes me back to the fundamental problem. I think deep down we know these artists aren't all that good. But we're getting bombarded by the same songs, day after day, hour after hour, and our mental defenses get weak. How many times have you heard some bullshit by Taio Cruz or LMFAO, and thought, MAN I HATE THIS SHIT. Only to find yourself humming or singing the same song you were dissin' two weeks ago? They're not as good as we NEED them to be. Think about it like this. 18 months ago Lebron James was one of the most beloved sports icons of all time. He was charismatic. He was cool. But most of all, he was great. A great young player. He was going to be this generation's Jordan. Or even better, an amalgam of Jordan and Magic. He was going to take a Championship starved town like Cleveland and finally deliver them from evil. But then he did something unthinkable. He left Cleveland a few months later to take his talents to Miami, and it began the most incredible personal turnaround in modern pop culture history. He went from being loved to hated. From revered to despised. From Annakin to Darth Vader. It was unbelievable. People called him a coward, a turncoat, a pussy. They said he couldn't make it on his own so he had to join up with a coupla other guys to try and win a championship. But his real crime? His true crime? Not living up to what we NEEDED him to be. THAT is his greatest crime. WE wanted him to be Jordan. WE wanted him to be what WE needed him to be. Phuck that he probably never would've won in Cleveland. WE wanted him to be like Mike. The fact that he turned his back on us to do what HE wanted? The one unforgivable icon sin.
Take President Obama's first three years in office. We all knew the country was in the shitter. We all new that it had taken a decade for the country to go from being in good shape, to being lying face down in a gutter in China. But once we elected Obama, we all fell for the CHANGE, HOPE, WE CAN DO IT!, mantra and expected it to be 2000 again with the wave of a magic wand. Phuck Congress, Phuck the war, Phuck it all. Hey Mr. Wizard Obama, why haven't you delivered us Shang-ra-la the way you promised! Lying prick! That's because he DIDN'T promise us that. From the night he won the election, to his inauguration speech, til yesterphuckingday, he's continually said it won't be easy, we have to do it together, and pull ourselves up. But no one wants to hear that. We don't need a President. We need the Genie from Aladdin's phucking lamp.
Well kiddies, thanks for reading, and i hope to have something else for you guys real soon...Like now.
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