Jay-Z Hits Back at Indie Record Stores

Earlier today, PHM gushed too much about Kanye West and Jay-Z noted that indie record stores are not happy with The Throne’s decision to release the album exclusively on iTunes and then to Best Buy for the following two weeks. Canoe, via Hot97, had the response from Jay-Z.

Jay-Z said that him and Kanye want to avoid the risk of seeing their music on the internet before its scheduled release date.

“I feel a little bad about it, but at the same time we made this album, we took eight months, we should be able to release it the way we like without everyone being up in arms. The real reason behind it was because we didn’t want the music to leak we wanted to present it to the people – we were thinking about the people in its entirety.

“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.”

PHM personally thinks that is a crock of sh!t. Okay, so your album won’t leak. But why does Best Buy get it two weeks before all of the other stores, when it is most in demand? If it is going to leak, or make it to the internet at all, it will be as soon as ANYONE has possession of the album. So as soon as the first iTunes customer or Best Buy customer buys the album, it will be on the internet. Why must the indie stores suffer?

Meanwhile, check out The Throne’s live version of H.A.M. below.

[youtube UtoHI0JEfDg]