Maybe Stop Watching the Throne So Hard

I’m so eye-rolley about the conceit of “Watch the Throne” — the collaboration “album” by Jay-Z and Kanye West, that was thrown together in a few hotel rooms — that I can barely handle listening to it. (Also, did I need a tribute song to ladies in the year 2011 called “That’s My Bitch”? Not really!) Despite his usually awesome politics and generally rather wonderful mouthiness, I just don’t feel the need to get Kanye’s opinions on the state of the world, when he might not have any idea any longer what that state really is. Somehow? On the album, Jay-Z ends up looking clued in, and he’s the one banging the political gong, as described here:

There are two kinds of rich man’s rhymes on this album, and it’s worth understanding how they differ. Just because both men talk about their riches doesn’t mean they’re talking about them in the same way…. Kanye, depressingly, seems to be content with his shopping list as an end in itself. The guy who once backed up his Katrina-era criticism of Bush 43 by promising to ask his manager how much he could donate to victims now appears to be drained of whatever empathy he once possessed….

“The scales was lopsided/ I’m just restorin’ order” Jay says of his capitalistic rise. But he also recognizes that his own success is not enough. On “Murder to Excellence,” he says, “Only spot a few blacks the higher we go. … We’re gonna need a million more.” (Kanye joins him in that sentiment, briefly, before departing to buy Gucci shoes at the mall.)

Besides, Gucci hasn’t really made an exciting men’s shoe in at least four years.