Nothing you hear about from Jay-Z and Kanye West’s project Watch The Throne can be taken as fact, it seems. After months of teasing us with possible release dates the duo finally settled on August 8th, and they excited fans even further when they announced a nationwide tour from September through October and into November.
The pre-sale for those tickets was supposed to have happened already, but it was pushed back until tomorrow morning “in order to accommodate more shows” according to a post on their official Facebook page. However, it seems that not only will the time of sale be pushed back to accommodate for more shows, but the actual shows themselves. Those searching for the Jay-Z and Kanye West dates on Ticketmaster will now find the dates are a whole two months later than the ones announced last week. For example one of their appearances at Los Angeles Staples Center, last week announced for October 18th and 19th, is now showing up as December 12th, with the previously announced dates nowhere to be seen.
Not all the dates have yet been shifted as it seems Ticketmaster are scrambling to get their site in order before the sale happens, but at least half of the dates can now be found placed in December.
Additionally, last week we told you that a group of indie record store owners had banded together to write an open letter to Jay-Z and Kanye, complaining about their method of release of Watch The Throne. Jay and Ye are first making it available digitally on iTunes on August 8th before anywhere else. A few days later the physical product will be on sale exclusively at Best Buy. Indie record stores will not receive the album for sale until two weeks after it is made available on iTunes, by which time most fans will have presumably picked up or downloaded the album.
In an interview on Hot 97 Jay-Z responded to the letter, admitting that he “feels a little bad about it,” but on the other hand he contests that the 8 months’ work that went into the making of the album should give them the right to release how they choose. Jay-Z claims that their main reason for giving it to iTunes first was to prevent the album from leaking before release day. “When you send it out to physical (stores), it pretty much, once it leaves the plant, it’s on the truck and that’s the end of it. And it has to go like two weeks before it goes to stores. That’s not gonna happen, that’s not gonna leak. We took great care to make sure it’s not leaking at all,” Jay-Z stated.
That still doesn’t explain the Best Buy part of the release, however. You can hear the full audio of Jay-Z’s interview on Hot 97 below.
