Against this back drop, along come a marriage made in hip-hop heaven ---Jay-Z and Kanye West. These are two old-fashioned icons, the last of a dying breed. There are younger stars who have their sort of dominance on their mind — Lil Wayne and Drake primarily — but the landscape they have to navigate doesn’t favor the lengthy reigns of old, especially when the entrenched powers refuse to cede any ground.
Still, by all measurements, Watch The Throne is a collection of relevant socially themed songs in an age of financial and political unrest is a challenge these two artists at least pay lip service to. Like a charitable donation, it’s a combination of maturity and duty. But the real tests on “Watch the Throne” are musical, not conceptual. The scattered nature of this album’s creation is evident most in the production, which can be roughly segmented into three categories. There are the Southern-inflected tracks, which are the most obvious concessions to modern hit making, and which are curiously few here: just “H•A•M,” produced by Lex Luger, and two of the album’s highlights, both with unprintable titles, produced by Hit-Boy and Southside. (Mr. West also receives production credit on almost every song.)