You want to hear the craziest s*it? I’m not excited by Watch The Throne releasing today. Want to know why that’s the craziest s*it? Because Jay-Z is my favorite artist of all time, Kanye West isn’t too far behind and their joint album is the most anticipated hip-hop release in recent memory.

Of course I understand natural excitement about the project. It’s warranted. The saddest part is, it’s not Jay and ‘Ye who’ve turned me off their collaboration. It’s the “journalists” (I write that term nowadays while simultaneously sticking one finger down my throat) and messy media folk who’ve ruined the experience for me. From the moment the album was announced, everyone and their mother had something to say about it. And hype is a funny thing; oftentimes you get swept up in it alongside everyone else, but it can also have the adverse effect. In this case, people’s posturing and pandering to not only the artists but their entire camps has made me run in the other direction every time the album is mentioned. It’s made me want to unfollow the bulk of the people I follow on Twitter. It even made me pass on an exclusive invite to a preview of the music (my friend literally checked my temperature at the time). This sounds crazy, but it’s also made me not want to hear the album—at least until the ridiculousness dies down—in a silent rebellion against industry kiss-asses.

When a blogger who calls himself D-Dot Omen dared to record portions of the listening session held a couple weeks back despite extremely strict rules against it, his peers struck him with the online hand of God, exorcising him from their rarefied (there goes that finger down my throat again) circle. While the move was idiotic and he deserved to be punished for it, my opinions of some of my peers reached a lower point than I thought they ever could due to the (hypocritical, in many cases) pack mentality displayed. This album’s release has exposed the industry’s biggest and best sycophants and shown me blatant d*ck-riding is officially accepted in today’s hip-hop media (perhaps it was always this bad, and Twitter exposes it for what it is).

I just want to enjoy two of my favorite MCs and Watch The Throne in peace.

Watch The Throne (Documentary) from JohnnYsaguirre on Vimeo.

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