![JSWISS featuring Chandanie - LML [VIDEO]](https://www.birthplacemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/JSWISS-218x150.jpg "JSWISS featuring Chandanie – LML [VIDEO]")
Watch The Throne, the highly anticipated joint LP from hip hop heavyweights Jay-Z and Kanye West, has been released as planned through iTunes, and remarkably, avoided being prematurely “leaked” over the internet, as so many major releases are subject to.
Jay-Z and Kanye West reportedly went to great lengths to avoid such an occurrence. The two recorded the album holed up in a hotel, allowing only a select few journalists and industry insiders to a strictly controlled, intimate listening session once the project was completed.
Furthering the buildup to the release of Watch The Throne, Jay-Z and Kanye West only dropped two songs from the project, “H.A.M.” and “Otis,” both receiving mixed reviews, but with the latter more universally accepted, with a slew of artists snatching up the instrumental and adding their own lyrical take on the Otis Redding-sampled track.
All in all, the previews for Watch The Throne have been largely favorable, though despite Jay-Z and Kanye’s grip on the hip hop industry, they can both be polarizing figures among hip hop fans. Aside from the album, a tour is in the works, and while expected to be lucrative for both parties, there has been some talk of differing views on the scope and cost of the shows.
For now, Watch The Throne is available exclusively through iTunes, with physical copied expected to hit stores later in the week.
Here is a sampling of the sentiment from around the web.
USA Today: Jay-Z and Kanye West Raise The Bar With ‘Watch The Throne’
MTV: Kanye, Jay-Z’s Watch The Throne Recalls Roc-A-Fella Heyday
HipHopDX: 9th Wonder Says Jay-Z & Kanye West’s “Watch The Throne” LP “Isn’t For Me”
Hua Hsu: Watch The Throne: Let Them Eat Cake