6 Kanye West Albums That Got Delayed (And Why)

3. Watch The Throne: 209 Days.

Hilariously, Kanye suggested in a 2010 MTV interview that “We’ll probably be done with the album in a day.”

At the 2011 New Years Eve party of the elite and famous, Las Vegas got treated to the news that Jay Z and Kanye West had an EP coming within the week. This exclamation from drunken Kanye’s excitement could have been dismissed as precisely that. Hov however, promised that one of hip hop’s most desired collaborative projects would be here within the month.

In January, the lead single “HAM” was made available to listeners. However, “HAM” wasn’t well-received, leading Kanye and Jay Z to push the album back.

After months of Silence on the matter, Jay Z gave a brief explanation for the delay. He suggested that Kanye was “in an extraordinarily creative place”, which is making it difficult for him to focus. In fairness to Kanye, he had just come off the heavily praised My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The song “Runaway”, off that album, was also in the midst of a short film/music video in the works. The intensity and scope of the project made it challenging to pin Kanye down into the studio, as a majority of his time was spent making this short film.

The current relationship between Kanye and Jay Z can also give some insight into the stressful making of the album. The "Otis" sample was so apparent in fact that Otis Redding had to have a feature credit on the song. The Otis feature led to arguments over the expensive budget of the album that were frequent throughout album recording. Also, tension would build over to a boiling point over what the intended track-list should be.

Finally, an official date got set for the 1st of August 2011 for the iTunes store, with a 5th August physical copy release date. Fans were given a brief scare when they missed this release, but the album hit the iTunes store a week later on the 8th of August.