“Watch the Throne” Title Significant To Hip Hop Culture, Explains Jay-Z

Pre-sale tickets for the Watch the Throne tour are being snapped up left and right and the start of this partnership between hip hop collaborators Jay-Z and Kanye West draws ever closer. Still, many wonder what the title means, and Jay-Z was eager to explain the importance of the name.

Jay-Z said that this collaboration is expected to help uphold the hip hop culture. In a recent interview with Lorenzo Thomas on 99 Jamz, the 32-year old rapper says that he doesn’t bend over to popular trends when planning his next project. He emphasized that sustaining hip hop culture shouldn’t need more than a simple sales strategy. “No super over-the-top, big singing chorus or anything,” he said. “That’s how we launched our album. And it’s good that it’s been embraced the way it has.”

Jay-Z says the daring title is a means of asserting the influence of hip hop culture on society as a whole. As such, the Grammy Award-winning hitmaker maintains a conscious awareness of his authority as hip hop trendsetter and how that can influence people. With much confidence, he stated that while in previous decades the music of the youth was rock and roll, hip hop has gradually taken that place.

What “Watch the Throne” means is just that: hip hop music may be at the top of the youth’s minds but something else can easily replace it. By making sure that the hip hop industry continues to put out the best product – one that can compete with the rise of dance music and indie music – it can be assured that it remains relevant to the current generation of youths.