It defied odds in these days of the music business. A leak prior to an album’s release is second nature in today’s world but Yeezy and Jay did something everyone else apparently hasn’t and WTT stayed under lock and key until its release date last weekend. Find out after the jump how they did it!

Marisa Mendez


How did West and Jay-Z do it? By taking extraordinary precautions from the very start of the recording process.

The sessions themselves didn’t even take place in proper recording studios. Instead, the two hip-hop stars laid down tracks in hotel rooms in Sydney, Paris and New York. And Def Jam ordered the project’s engineers Mike Dean, Anthony Kilhoffer and Noah Goldstein to keep the album literally under lock and key.

The impetus for the added security measures can be traced back to the unsanctioned leaks from West’s chart-topping 2010 album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. After cuts like “Power” and “Lost in the World” prematurely hit the Web, West–who was eagerly posting non-album tracks through his “G.O.O.D. Music Fridays” campaign–focused his energies on solving the anti-leak riddle.

Continue reading here