http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/indus...05315342.story
How Jay-Z and Kanye West Beat the Leakers With 'Watch the Throne'
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What they didn't realize was the months of near-military-scale planning required to keep the album under wraps.
Taking C.I.A.-like precautions to ensure that the album was released on their own terms, the duo successfully staved off hackers with a leak-proof strategy -- an anomaly for an industry consistently brought to its knees by web-savvy individuals eager to share unreleased material with the world.
"It was really important to [Jay] that people experienced this album in its entirety when they first listened to it," says a Roc Nation executive, who asked to remain anonymous. "That was really the driving force of it, to create that nostalgic moment of unwrapping the CD and listening to it for the first time."
Conceived during three iterations in Australia, New York City and Paris, "Watch the Throne" was kept secure by three core engineers -- Mike Dean, Anthony Kilhoffer and Noah Goldstein -- who disabled their computers' Wi-Fi at pop-up studios constructed in hotel rooms. Due to compromising hacker attempts for West's 2010 release "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," outside producers such as the RZA and Swizz Beatz were asked to appear in-person for works-in-progress -- no emailed song drafts were allowed.
To combat pre-release piracy, Kilhoffer, Grammy Award-winner for West's Graduation and John Legend's Get Lifted, claims that all sessions were saved offsite to hard drives in Goldstein's locked Pelican briefcase over the course of nine months. "Everywhere we went in hotels, we were locking hard drives and Noah took them with him," says Kilhoffer, who now travels with external memory units that can only be accessed by biometric fingerprints.
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While Jay-Z and Kanye West managed to record one of hip-hop's most hotly anticipated albums without compromise, some label executives agree that the method could set an example for an industry still struggling to adapt to the digital renaissance.
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"I think there are a lot of people looking at this and saying, 'Wow, maybe these guys are onto something. That might be the way to go,'" says the Roc Nation executive. "I'd be surprised if many other artists don't use this strategy as well."
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more people WILL use this technique