Kanye West Wanted Jay-Z’s ‘Magna Carta’ Tracks To Appear On ‘Watch The Throne’

July 15th, 2013

Mike Sacchetti

During a BBC Interview with Zane Lowe, Jay-Z revealed that Kanye West and himself got into a bit of a tiff during the production of their 2011 album, Watch The Throne. Apparently, two of the tracks featured on Jay-Z’s new album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, were advocated by Kanye West that they must appear on the duo’s collaborative effort. On top of it, they both spent days arguing over the tracks.

The two records in question are the opening track “Holy Grail,” which features Justin Timberlake, and the track “Oceans” which features Frank Ocean. NME reports that Jay-Z recalls, “We had this whole plan when me and Kanye did [the] ‘Watch The Throne’ album that we would go right into our solos after that. Soon as I thought we had wrapped up ‘Watch The Throne’, I made two records – I had ‘Holy Grail’ and ‘Oceans’.” Regardless, Frank Ocean did appear on Watch The Throne. However, it wasn’t the track that Kanye West fought for. This news does not reflect positively on Kanye West, especially since Jay-Z claimed that Watch The Throne had already wrapped up production, yet West continued to complain about a project which had already been finished.

Jay-Z goes on to say, “[There were] no lyrics on ‘Holy Grail’ and I recorded ‘Oceans’ and I played those records for Kanye. And he was like, ‘No those have to go on ‘Watch The Throne”, so we spent four days arguing about those records and I was explaining to him why it wasn’t right for this project and I had a whole idea for making this album called ‘Magna Carta’… ‘Holy Grail’ [part of] the name came after.” There were no physical altercations during this 4-day argument, but “…there was some pushing at one point but not between us, just everyone else got a little excited,” Jay-Z added.

Jay-Z’s new album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, is out now, and features artists such as Justin Timberlake, Frank Ocean, Beyoncé, Nas, Pharrell Williams, and more.