official liveblog rap album review thread

i mean "lost in the world" and "monster" had CW singing very high in the mix over JV's vocals too

It really does sound a lot like Wilson, and Wilson does sing at least somewhere on the album (http://music.barnesandnoble.com/Watch-the-Throne/Jay-Z/e/602527791494), so I could easily see him adding a little range to this verse. The lyrics are just so Vernon-ish though that it's hard for me to picture anybody but Vernon singing it.

A lot of Watch the Throne was pieced together from leftover MBDTF sessions, right? I remember some Vernon interview where he mentioned some stuff he recorded might be used later on. I wonder if those sessions are also the origins of that Dream verse on "No Church in the Wild."

...

The Carter IV has leaked. Just sayin

idg rev's ellipses

I didn't realize Terry was on "No Church" and thought he was mistaking Frank Ocean for The-Dream.

My bad, really.

is there anything better than 'golddigger' on this

― big hoosalah aka the ghostrider (deej), Tuesday, November 9, 2010 7:14 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pretend im not 'deej' asking this but a 'person who really likes golddigger'

― big hoosalah aka the ghostrider (deej), Tuesday, November 9, 2010 7:14 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

aint messing with no broke broke!

― big hoosalah aka the ghostrider (deej), Tuesday, November 9, 2010 7:14 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i love these posts so much

will someone liveblog rick ross??

think someone mentioned it leaked

alright fuck it i'm liveblogging cruel summer

god is a crul ringmaster to let you start doing this when i should be going to bed

lol

to the world / kanye & kells

the only voice you hear on this album for the first 2 minutes is kells doing some weird vocal scale exercise. saw various ppl on twitter freaking out over this hook but it's pretty corny to me, and i don't really like when kells is trying to sing LOUDER than really LOUD modern beats. anyway kanye's verse on this is okay... there's some bits about golden sachs and mitt romney on this that might get people talking, but they don't really make much sense so maybe not. by virture of kelly being on this i'll assume it's one of the better songs. there's an uncredited female vocalist at the end of this in typical overblown kanye fashion.

haha is having R. take over the first couple minutes of the album a Future homage or what

clique / big sean, jay, kanye

i think this song is pretty fucking incredible, i must admit. hit-boy pretty much murdered this, seen some people compare this favorably to old tim and i can almost see it but it reminds me of a super hi-fi, maxed out version of jahlil beats for meek mill. i kinda just vibe to the beat for the first two verses but i dig kanye on this. his aggrieved sneer can still get me at times. the bit about george tenet is pretty funny in an old kanye kinda way. but really, this beat.

haha is having R. take over the first couple minutes of the album a Future homage or what

― some dude, Thursday, September 13, 2012 12:31 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

or he's courting the demons of best of both worlds?

i heard "clique" on the radio today and thought it was pretty sick

mercy / big sean, pusha, kanye, 2 chainz

i think most of us dig this joint at this point? the bass & drums on this are just really cool. i do think pusha t & kanye rapping about club drugs is one of the corniest moments of the year. pusha t dropping ecstasy is so fucking funny to me for some reason. would put this song as my no. 1 of the year on principle if there was a remix where plies busted in for a verse right when pusha says "blue dolphins". in any event, fun to relive the one moment where it seemed like 2 chainz might rightfully take over the world.

i heard "clique" on the radio today and thought it was pretty sick

― some dude, Thursday, September 13, 2012 12:34 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah that's an instant classic beat

i forgot to mention that mercy having "additional production" from mike will and hudson mohawke might top timbaland's "additional drums" on "stronger" in the canon of needless kanye myth-making, but i'll have to stew on that one for a bit

hudson mohawke is some non-rap guy right, i just assumed he was responsible for the beat on the kanye verse

"mercy" has a lot of problems but i've made my peace w/ it, best verse on any rap hit of '12 is 2 chainz

i'm going to write an anonymous e-mail forward about a secret meeting between the auto industry and the rap industry that conspired to invent the term "suicide doors" to fuel thousands of terrible puns

new god flow / pusha t, kanye

i got hype as fuck off kanye's verse when he rocked it a capella at the BET awards so it being tacked onto a pusha solo track was a really disappointing development for me. man i used to love pusha, his music is so joyless now tho. his whole vibe is so unlikable... he really lost the plot when he stopped being underdog, both with critics and the wider rap world. i still think it's epic as hell when the beat drops out & ye goes "DID YEEZY NOT GET SIGNED BY HOV AND DAME / AND RAN TO JACOB AND MAD THE NEW JESUS CHAIN?" he sorta morphs into this overworked preacher vibe, idk i dig it. then he launches into this kinda hilarious "i don't know but i've been told" outro. this would've been a cool solo track, i fuck w/ that ghost sample.

hudson mohawke is some non-rap guy right, i just assumed he was responsible for the beat on the kanye verse

yeah this sounds right

the morning / raekwon, d'banj, pusha, common, cyhi, kid cudi, 2 chainz

this is kinda hilarious... the first track w/o ye and they just drop this garbage can of a lineup in our laps. the beat is some bleep-beep thing like an old neptunes beat for fam-lay or something. also raekwon says "mark zuckerberg of the block" which... yeah. that d'banj single from earlier this year is awesome but he sounds so terribly shoehorned on this, and then pusha slips into some weird patois flow for the first few bars. just bad looks overall. chainz has a real dope sounding verse on this but it only goes for like 3 bars. i think ye pops up uncredited at the end of this? somehow this isn't as abjectly terrible as you'd think.

pusha's not untalented but reverence for him always seemed bizarre and misplaced to me

cold / kanye & khaled

man, hit-boy must've had a good laugh over selling this fisher price ass beat to kanye. ye's rapping on this is alright on this but you start to really get the sense on this that he tries to puff the album up by having these weird ad-libs where he's just screaming or w/e like on the "don't like remix". this just sounds cheap and flimsy hell, not sure how they ever let it get out this way.

pusha's not untalented but reverence for him always seemed bizarre and misplaced to me

― some dude, Thursday, September 13, 2012 12:54 AM (40 seconds ago) Bookmark

he used to be a really clever rapper but he's not even that anymore. he stopped being clever when he started rapping exclusively about luxury.

one thing this album is making me think about is how much better the 2 chainz album would've been if he had kanye feed him all these beats. every time he comes on he sounds incredible.

i don't think the "Cold" beat is bad per se but it sounds EXACTLY like Drake's "I'm Goin' In"

higher / the-dream, pusha, ma$e

this is apparently another hit boy beat that sounds just cheap as hell. it's pretty reminiscent of that dream song off the chainz album and lo & behold chainz has an uncredited "yeah!!!" on here. terius doesn't sound good on this either... he gets the first verse and the whole thing sounds really meandering. it's kinda weird that after not really doing hook work for a few years he's back on two of the most prominent rap releases of the year. ma$e sounds fucking awful on this song, hell. this is like a bad affion crockett impersonation of ma$e.

i don't think the "Cold" beat is bad per se but it sounds EXACTLY like Drake's "I'm Goin' In"

― some dude, Thursday, September 13, 2012 12:58 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah that's true also throwing khaled on it for no reason just makes me think of it as the sequel to "go hard" and no one needed that

sin city / john legend, teyana taylor, cyhi, malik yusef, travis scott

can't believe kanye let a lineup this inconsequential end up on a 12 song album, christ. i guess cyhi opens this? i don't know what travis scott sounds like. teyana taylor is legit like the jessie j of the rap/r&b world, important producers need to stop trying to make her happen. i'm not sure what john legend does on this... this beat has like 13 difference parts and some real ugly, thin sounding bass. a really unpleasant song all the way around.

supposedly there was some kind of favor trading thing of Kanye and Khaled doing "Cold" and "Wish You Would" at the same time and each taking one for their album, which is hilarious because why would Kanye West think "why yes DJ Khaled I will write a song for your album, if in exchange you yell for four seconds at the beginning of a song on my album"

the one / kanye, big sean, 2 chainz, marsha ambrosius

this starts off sounding nice & choral but they bring in some loud martial drums so it goes to shit very quickly. the piano part on this is really cool... more unnecessary ghost echoe tho. marsha's hook kinda echoes "no one" for a bit which is a bit weird. i'm actually impressed by sean on this song only because he still manages to flow over this somber r&b piano beat. chainz sounds nice... rhymes "free gucci" with "free gucci" tho

which is hilarious because why would Kanye West think "why yes DJ Khaled I will write a song for your album, if in exchange you yell for four seconds at the beginning of a song on my album"

― some dude, Thursday, September 13, 2012 1:06 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

haha yes

yeah the starpower seems very haphazardly distributed on this album, kinda sad that even We Are Young Money and the MMG albums knew better how to balance things out in that respect

some uncredited singing at the end of "the one" that i only mention cuz i think it might be the second time fauntleroy has a prominent singing part on this album w/o being credited but i can't quite tell

creepers / kid cudi

it's hilarious that cudi has effectively made himself the quiet emo kid in class that everyone are apprehensive to talk to so they just threw him on the end here by himself. this song is kinda hot tho... straight 808s core so it's up my lane. his singing actually sounds kinda nice in places. i'll never listen to this again but it's surprisingly pleasing meh.

how is Kid Cudi in 2012 like the 3rd most popular artist on this label

bliss / john legend, teyena taylor

song number 2 off of legend & teyena's 'cruel bummer' mini-EP. this is apparently a full hudson mohawke production but it's pretty boring. i'm not going to sit thru this nonsense, my mom might like it tho.

how is Kid Cudi in 2012 like the 3rd most popular artist on this label

― some dude, Thursday, September 13, 2012 1:13 AM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark

yeah it's weird. this really makes such a terrible case for the label as a whole. i mean it's okay just by kanye's sheer force of will but man the once you get past him the river runs dry really fucking quickly.

hahaha the kid cudi song is apparently produced by that fuckin guy who sang "hypnotize" over "umbrella"

i don't like (remix) / pusha, kanye, sean, chief keef, jada

jada's inclusion on this so puzzling to me, still. i don't really have much of an opinion on what kanye did to this beat but i like ye's verse on this a lot. THEY WANNA FIND ME NOT BREATHING LIKE THEY FOUND MIKE. anyway i think they added some ad-libs of pusha going "bang bang! haha!" i can't tell if it's supposed to be ironic or what

hahaha the kid cudi song is apparently produced by that fuckin guy who sang "hypnotize" over "umbrella"

― some dude, Thursday, September 13, 2012 1:16 AM (19 seconds ago) Bookmark

ha fuck i randomly heard this song at the gym the other day and almost purposefully dropped a 45 pound weight on my head

somehow this is only 12 songs. i'm truly astounded... in part because i'm not sure how kanye couldn't get CRUEL SUMMER out in the fucking summer when it only had 12 songs. but yeah this isn't very good, a lot of the songs sound cheap and messy. would've been a decent solo ye album tho.

kanye on "i don't like" is the worst verse of the year imo, i have no real opinion whatsoever of chief keef or this song but i'm kind of happy for him that he was able to get the original song's national profile up and out of the shadow of this terrible terrible remix

the 2nd DTP album is secretly the most redeemable modern rap vanity imprint compilation, was also the first time i enjoyed a tity boi verse!

i should check that out. underrated crew, obv.