Music
SINGLE REVIEW: Jay-Z x Kanye West - Otis
In “Otis,” Kanye West voiced what many were pondering, “Damn Yeezy and Hov, where the h--- you’ve been?” Then again, it was not like they were out of sight. West was just in New York last week for the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival that Stone covered, and Jay-Z was photographed working with West and Frank Ocean, not long ago. If the public were anything, they were excessively anxious. For all that, the wait is close to ending, and Otis is the second potent installment for all those watching the throne.
West, who unsurprisingly produced the record, sampled the late Otis Redding’s soulful record, “Try a Little Tenderness,” and opened with it before the timely snare snaps and the prodigious, swaggering lyrics started.
“Photo shoot fresh, looking like wealth. I’m about to call the paparazzi on myself… Uh, everything’s for sale. I got 5 passports. I’m never going to jail,” voiced one of the top two, greatest rappers of all-time.
As far as the debate of who went harder on the record, without question, Hov did, and one bar that West raps affirms that.
“Maybach bumper sticker read, ‘What would Hov do?’” is that Kanye bar.
To boot, the global, hip-hop icons, Hov and Yeezy, aped what two New York, hip-hop legends, Jadakiss and Styles P., mastered more than a decade ago, which is interchanging four to eight bars repeatedly on one track.
The anticipated collaboration album, Watch the Throne, is set to release in less than a month. Unlike Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter IV or Dr. Dre’s Detox, this album is being released less than a year after it was announced. With the lead single “H.A.M” and now Otis, Watch the Throne is sure to be a classic. It is just a matter of the public waiting a few more weeks to hear what seems to be the greatest, hip-hop collaboration album ever, and I have, purposely, only heard the two singles.
