“No electro, no metro, a little retro…ah, perfecto!”
When Hip-Hop fans complain about how they miss the 90s, what do you think they really mean? Is it the baggy jeans or box braids they’re bemoaning the depature of? No, it’s the loss of the sound that defined the decade, specifically the early and mid 90’s work of producers like DJ Premier, Q-Tip, and Pete Rock. After playing around with autotune and the neo-electro stylings of today’s music, Kanye West seems to have begun to miss that sound too ( see his RZA/No I.D. track “Dark Fantasy” ). So this G.O.O.D. Friday/Saturday track isn’t your standard offering, but a DeLorean trip down memory lane featuring Pete Rock on the boards, and Jay-Z reminiscing on the “good old days.”
For the beat, Pete goes to Curtis Mayfield’s classic debut, Curtis, for “The Makings of You.” He uses Mayfield’s vocals for the intro, and loops the funk guitar led melody for the foundation. For bells and whistles, Pete includes the famous opening grunt adlibs from Syl Johnson’s “Different Strokes.” Finally, Charlie Wilson and Kid Cudi add subtle but recognizable background crooning to flesh out the song’s musicianship, delivering a lush palette of sounds for the emcees to rock over.
Kanye and Jay are drawn into nostalgic musings from different angles. West begins strong, rhyming on being inspired to deliver excellence by those who missed getting to his position (failed street rappers, emcees turned A&Rs, etc). Like many of Kanye’s G.O.O.D. Friday lyrics, there’s several lines of debauchery like ejaculating on a groupie’s face. But Mayfield’s lyrics on children also cause Kanye to think about the effects of unplanned pregnancies, and being haunted by “the ghosts of kids that I never had.”
“I never understood Planned Parenthood, ’cause I never met anyone that planned to be a parent in the hood,” Kanye rhymes. “Taking refills of that Plan B pill/ Another shorty that won’t make it to the family will.”
In his second verse, ‘Ye briefly goes back to his tawdry ways when discussing how he and a friend obtained two black women with the names of “white bitches.” Overall, Kanye uses the verse to indicate that not only is he hot again from a publicity standpoint, but that there’s music to back it up (“So next time you see me in your Fallopian/ Know the jewelry’s Egyptian/ Know the hunger’s Ethiopian”). As with most of us, and definitely Kanye West, the biggest potential obstacle is the face in the mirror.
“In the mirror where I see my only enemy/ Your life’s cursed?/ Oh, mine’s an obscenity.”
The music has a special meaning for Jay-Z, considering it’s his “Mama’s shit.” He sets the era by noting his household was littered by Afros, marijuana sticks, Bally shoes, and Ballantine Ale. Jay only briefly mentions his drug-dealing past. Instead, the verse is really an homage to his mother Gloria. He praises her strength in the face of the criticism she endured from the religious (“Virgin Marys tried to judge her/ I’m like where the Madonnas now?”). The end result was a child that became a “warrior,” and Jay promises that no one will ever take away their joy.
Early reports suggest this song may be a part of the Kanye West/Jay-Z album Watch the Throne. Both artists have been very instrumental in setting trends in Hip-Hop. Kanye, for example, played a hand in the neo-electro phase mainstream Hip-Hop is now enamored with. Don’t be surprised if within the year the next “retro” phrase results in a return to music like this.
KANYE WEST X JAY-Z X PETE ROCK X CHARLIE WILSON X KID CUDI ” THE JOY”
Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 
Yeah, eventually it will go back to music like ‘this’… they’ve been toying with it for way too long now, round about the Kanye/Common sightings. Full circle…