I must admit to being somewhat preoccupied the last week or so with personal pursuits, so I may have been a little late to the party when it came to Kanye West and Jay-Z announcing a joint EP. Does this mean that the release date for Kanye’s own fifth album gets pushed back? Hope not. Considering Jay-Z’s horrid track record in regards to collaboration albums (two disgustingly bad albums with R. Kelly and one not terrible but pointless album with Linkin Park…and yes, I’ll be doing a Jay-Z series soon enough), you figure all this EP has to do is be good for 30 seconds and it’s already better than any previous collabo album featuring Jay. Plus, Kanye definitely seems to bring out the best in Jigga. So, good things are expected.

So far, things seem to be moving along nicely. I must admit, I’m not feeling the beat to “Monster” as much as the beat to “Power”, but this is one hell of a song. In addition to a little musical cross-pollination with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, we’ve got Kanye (who has stepped his lyrical game up tremendously), Jay (fantastic as usual), Nicki Minaj (who-to my complete and total surprise-is tolerable on this track and would be enjoyable if not for her annoying cartoon voices) and Rick Ross (who stays out of the way pretty much).

Check out the track on Stereogum.