Kanye West and Jay-Z’s Watch The Throne is widely considered a seminal Hip Hop collaborative album. DaBaby believes his new release, Better Than You with Baton Rouge rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again, should be viewed on the same level.
The 12-track Better than You mixtape hit DSPs on Friday, March 4. As part of DaBaby’s media run to promote the project, the North Carolina-bred rapper sat down with DJ Whoo Kid for an interview.
“When you talk about music and a body of work, it ain’t been no collab project that’s f###### around with that since… you probably gotta go to Watch The Throne, Jay-Z and Kanye type s###,” declared DaBaby.
Hov & Ye’s ‘Watch The Throne’ Was A Commerical and Critical Success
Watch The Throne hosts classic tracks such as “N##### in Paris” and “Otis.” Kanye West and Jay-Z’s 2011 opus began its 66-week run on the Billboard 200 chart at #1 by selling 436,000 copies in its first seven days of release.
Many music critics praised Watch The Throne. The LP made numerous publications’ year-end lists for the top-ranked albums. Watch The Throne also earned seven total Grammy nominations.
“Otis” won Best Rap Performance in 2012. “N##### in Paris” won Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song in 2013. “No Church in the Wild” won Best Rap/Sung Collaboration that same year.
‘Better Than You’ Is On Pace To Have Lower Than Exected First-Week Numbers
HitsDailyDouble projects Better than You to debut with 25,000-30,000 first-week units. In comparison, Youngboy’s third studio album, Sincerely, Kentrell, started at #1 with 137,000 units last September. 2022’s Colors opened with 79,000 units.
DaBaby’s most recent solo album left its commercial mark in 2020. Blame It on Baby became the southern rhymer’s second Number One (124,000 first-week units) following Kirk reaching the top of the Billboard 200 in 2019 (145,000 first-week units).
There have been countless collaborative collections by Hip Hop artists since Watch The Throne dropped. Some of those notable projects include Drake & Future’s What a Time to Be Alive, Killer Mike & EI-P’s Run the Jewels, Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz’s ColleGrove, 21 Savage & Offset’s Without Warning, Kanye West & Kid Cudi’s Kids See Ghosts, and Gunna & Lil Baby‘s Drip Harder.