It was also certified quintuple platinum in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in November 2020. It reached the top ten in 11 other countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 436,000 copies in the first week, and broke the iTunes first week sales record at the time. Many critics and publications named Watch the Throne to their year-end best-of lists, including Rolling Stone and The Washington Post. However, a few reviewers found the lyrical content uninspiring. The album received generally positive reviews from music critics, who mostly praised the rappers' performances and the productions. Jay-Z and West embarked on the Watch the Throne Tour for promotion that spanned from October 2011 to June 2012 and became the highest-grossing hip hop concert tour in history. M", " Otis", " Lift Off", " No Church in the Wild", and the Billboard Hot 100 top five hit " Niggas in Paris", with all of the singles receiving music videos.Seven singles were released for Watch the Throne, including " H Many writers interpreted the subject matter to concern the plight of African Americans struggling with financial success in America. The album also expresses other topics, such as Jay-Z's thoughts on fatherhood, West's reflection on being deemed a social villain, and their success as performers. The braggadocio lyrics exhibit themes of excellence, opulence, decadence, fame, materialism, power, and the burdens of success, as well as political and socioeconomic critique. Expanding on the dense production style of West's fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010), Watch the Throne incorporates orchestral and progressive rock influences, unconventional samples, and dramatic melodies in its sound. Recording sessions took place at various locations and began in November 2010, with production led by West and a variety of high-profile producers, including Mike Dean, Swizz Beatz, Pete Rock, RZA, Jeff Bhasker, The Neptunes, and Q-Tip. It also features vocal contributions from Kid Cudi, Seal, Justin Vernon, Elly Jackson, Connie Mitchell, Charlie Wilson and Pete Rock, among others, and samples of vocals by soul musicians Otis Redding and Curtis Mayfield. The album features guest appearances from Frank Ocean, The-Dream, Beyoncé and Mr Hudson. They originally sought to record a five-song EP together, but the project eventually evolved into a full-length album. Prior to the release, Jay-Z and West had collaborated on various singles, and with the latter as a producer on the former's work. It was released on August 8, 2011, through Roc-A-Fella Records, Roc Nation, and Def Jam Recordings.
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And forgive the pun, but there’s still no real blueprint for him: Past 50, a billionaire, married with children-not only capable of artistic growth (as he proved so eloquently on 2017’s 4:44), but also willing to embrace it.Watch the Throne is a collaborative studio album by American rappers Jay-Z and Kanye West. Even as he ascended to the executive suite-a move that not only rechristened rappers as the vertically integrated businessmen they already were, but also opened up new paths for black artists navigating corporate America-he remained stoic, a little ruthless, playful about a past that most might not have come back from.Īdd to it a dexterity on the mic-not to mention a deep, intuitive love for language-that helped bring rap out of the yes-yes-y’all era and into another in which MCs functioned as American griots, chroniclers of the black American experience whose chains flashed bright but whose words flashed even brighter. Jay-Z (born in 1969) didn’t romanticize the streets (“Recruited lieutenants with ludicrous dreams of gettin’ cream/‘Let’s do this,’ it gets tedious”), but he never claimed remorse for them either. By the time he released 1996’s Reasonable Doubt, he said he was the oldest 26-year-old you’d ever want to meet.
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His childhood was violent: He started selling crack in his early teens and later quipped that getting a gun in Bed-Stuy was easier than getting public assistance. Growing up in central Brooklyn (“I’m from Marcy Houses, where the boys die by the thousand”), Shawn Carter wrote rhymes everywhere: standing at a streetlight, on the backs of brown-paper bags, banging out beats on his windowsill to find the rhythm.