Getting together, on the other assistance, is modern, hiphopified culture's equivalent of John Lennon and Mick Jagger whacking out an album in 1970. It's not something you get to see too often, the two biggest stars in any precise galaxy aligning as a unit, and there is a somewhat prosaic reason you don't see it happening more: like LeBron James entrancing his talents to South Beach to ball with Dwyane Wade, getting megastars like Yeezy and Hova together under the same rubric produces a conundrum as ample as its tantalizing promise. Who's going to shoot the damn ball?
On "Watch the Throne," it's mostly Jay-Z's team, but the most fascinating part of the album, in in point of fact, might be watching the bobbleheaded ego of Kanye West self-deflate just enough to allow the two of them to fit in the same room together at the same time. He doesn't postpone, exactly: "What's a king without a god?" he asks, possibly rhetorically, on the tub-thumping opener, "No Church in the Wild," before Shawn Carter breaks in and steals the long explanation with some portentously cryptic rhymes about tears on the mausoleum floor and lies on the lips of priests. Kanye is still stuck measure in "808s and Heartbreak" mode, though the auto-tuning is greatly toned down here; there's something genuinely charming and genuine about his unaltered singing make known; you want to tape it up on your refrigerator and admire it on your way to the yogurt. The track is undeniably a highlight -- "Lift Off," which follows, sounds mendacious and wafer-thin in direct contrast, unredeemed by a guest vocal from the Missus Jay-Z.