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With just a week to go until its long-awaited release, we look back on the year-long journey to the Throne. By Rob Markman Kanye West and Jay-Z Photo: Getty Images The wait is almost over. On August 8, Jay-Z and Kanye West (now collectively known as the Throne ) will drop their long-awaited, full-length album Watch the Throne on iTunes as a digital exclusive, with physical retailers to follow on August 12. It was August 2010 when Kanye first sent the rap world buzzing when he tweeted, “Me and jay bout to drop a 5 song album called ‘Watch the Throne.’ ” By October, that five-song EP had turned into a full-length LP. West confirmed with MTV News ‘ Sway that he and Hov were going all in. Check out exclusive photos of Jay-Z and Kanye West in the studio. “We putting out a whole album now,” ‘Ye said. “We had done five [songs] so far, but then a few of them kind of were out there, and I put them on my album. Sorry, Jay,” he chuckled. “But we got some more, and we’re going to the South of France at the end of the month to just record new ideas. But we’ll probably be done with the album in a day.” Things didn’t quite work out as planned, or perhaps Kanye overstated things, but the recording took way more than 24 hours. Nevertheless, while on a promo run to promote his book told Sway that he enjoyed working with Kanye and marveled at his growth as a beatmaker and lyricist. “This is another level of that recording,” Hov said. “Because Kanye, I’ve seen him — really, he’s like a brother to me — I’ve seen him from the beginning to where he is now. And to see him as a producer and to see how he’s growing as a producer and as an artist, for me, on another level, it’s enjoyable. I’m watching the guy that I pretty much mentored become his own guy, with his own opinion. It’s fantastic.” Fanatics wouldn’t get their first taste of Watch the Throne until January 2011 when the duo released “H.A.M.,” the Lex Luger-produced energy ball that found ‘Ye and Jay trading braggadocios verses. In the end, however, ‘H.A.M.” wasn’t the big hit that fans and pundits expected. Still, expectations for the album remained high. “There’s songs on there that’s making you go crazy,” Swizz Beatz told MTV News of the project without revealing too much. “That album is amazing, but I have to let those guys talk about that, because that’s their expression. All I can tell you is it passed the bar.” Read MTV News’ first impressions of the album after an exclusive listening session. Anticipation led to multiple rumors about the LP’s release date. First, it was reported that Throne would drop on July 4. Instead, during the Fourth of July weekend, the LP was made available for pre-order . Soon after, an official track list was revealed on Jay’s Life and Times blog. The track list confirmed that Beyonc