Kanye West

By Becky Bain Carrie Underwood was her usual sweet self on The Tonight Show last night singing “Temporary Home,” the latest single from her crescendo-rific album Play On. We’re actually surprised Conan didn’t have on a band from the New Moon soundtrack, since it was apparently Twilight night with Bel...

By Becky A hit with Alicia would certainly round out Drake’s year – his song “Best I Ever Had” peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100; he’s on everyone’s short list when it comes time to pick album guests, following work with Jay-Z, Kanye West and Lil Wayne; his profile continues rising with this nic...

By Robbie 5. Favorite Music Collaboration: Cobra Starship and Leighton Meester (”Good Girls Go Bad”), Lonely Island and T-Pain (”I’m on a Boat”); T.I. and Rihanna (”Live Your Life”); Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat (”Lucky”); Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West (”Run This Town”)

By Becky Fergie credited Kanye, along with her fellow Black Eyed Peas members, for making hip-hop music more “gay-friendly”: “They’re completely gay-friendly. Are you kidding me? Look at how they dress!” she joked to The Advocate about the guys in her band, adding, “Kanye West really did a great...

By Maura 42. Jay-Z, The Blueprint (Roc-A-Fella, 2001) 23. Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker (Bloodshot, 2000) 17. Kanye West, The College Dropout (Roc-A-Fella, 2004) 11. The Hold Steady, Boys And Girls In America (Vagrant, 2006) 9. The Avett Brothers, I And Love And You (Columbia/American, 2009)

By Chris Molanphy 5. Jay-Z feat. Rihanna & Kanye West, “Run This Town” (LW No. 4, 13 weeks) 10. Jay-Z feat. Rihanna & Kanye West, “Run This Town” (LW No. 7, 92,000 downloads) Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs 8. Jay-Z feat. Rihanna & Kanye West, “Run This Town” (LW No. 4, 14 weeks)

By Maura But why bring all these bands to New York City during the same bleary-eyed period? Why, if these A & R guys “have a reasonably good sense,” do they have to only capitalize on bands who are peaking right around the third week of October? It’s nice to give lip service to the “digital” world,...

By Maura Favorite Hip-Hop Artist Beastie Boys Eminem Flo Rida Jay-Z Kanye West Kid Cudi Lil’ Wayne The Lonely Island Lupe Fiasco Pitbull Soulja Boy T.I. Favorite Male Artist Eminem Jason Mraz Jay-Z John Mayer Kanye West Keith Urban Lil’ Wayne Maxwell Ne-Yo Rob Thomas Tim McGraw Toby Keith

By Maura Thanks to the speed with which news can travel around the Internet—and the seemingly insatiable hunger for dead celebrities sparked by the passings of Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, etc.—the story made its way to other forums, and “RIP Kanye West” quickly became a trending topic on the fak...

By Maura Jay-Z, Blueprint 3 (996,000 since its release Sept. 9) Kanye West, 808s and Heartbreak (1.023m in 2008 since Nov. 24 release; 579,000 in 2009; total 1.602m) Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III (2.874m in 2008 since June 10 release; 392,000 in 2009; total 3.266m)

By Maura HOW THIS RUMOR GOT STARTED: The hip-hop gossip site ran an “exclusive” report saying that GaGa was “likely to dump Kanye” yesterday: What happened, you ask? It’s not yet clear - all we know is that it’s LADY GAGA who wants out, not Kanye!!!

By Maura Video of the Year: Beyonce Knowles - “If I Were a Boy” Beyonce Knowles - “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” Jamie Foxx feat. T-Pain - “Blame It” T.I. feat. Rihanna - “Live Your Life” Kanye West - “Heartless” Best Male Hip-Hop Artist: Lil Wayne Rick Ross T.I. Kanye West Young Jeezy

By Maura I love when celebrities use their online personae for good, namely debunking rumors that fly around gossip sites in the endless game of Internet Telephone Played By People Wearing Earplugs; Mark Hoppus denying the rumors about the new blink-182 single, Pete Wentz noting that 50 Cent wa...

By Maura Johnston I bet he doesn't even like them. [kanYe West: Blog]

By Lucas Jensen Kanye West's inevitable ALL CAPS response to last night's South Park defenestration just arrived, and he's angry...with himself. Continuing in the pattern of self-reflection that is the Kanye West of the past year, he suggests that South Park's skewering is the natural end result of past e...

By Chris Molanphy 3. T.I. feat. Rihanna, "Live Your Life" (LW No. 3, 15 weeks) 5. Kanye West, "Heartless" (LW No. 4, 9 weeks) 8. Britney Spears, "Womanizer" (LW No. 7, 14 weeks) 9. Kevin Rudolf feat. Lil Wayne, "Let It Rock" (LW No. 15, 19 weeks) 10. Kanye West, "Love Lockdown" (LW No. 8, 16 weeks)

By Maura Johnston Kanye West was the musical guest on the holiday episode of Saturday Night Live, and his performance of "Love Lockdown" and "Heartless" resulted in catcalling from the usual suspects: "Disturbingly like a quiet man during bad karaoke"; "It sounded off... maybe just too much bragging about...

By Maura Johnston 3. Courtney Love takes on Ryan Adams, bloggers, and the world. She's been taking people on online since the pre-Firefox era, and she's since run with her blogging, fusing style tips with rants in a way that Kanye West can only dream of. She's also one of the few people to call out the weird class i...

By Maura Johnston A lot of people I know are having kind of crappy weeks (not to mention Kanye West and Axl Rose), so I figured why not close the week out on a happy note? I now present to you my current version of The Five Songs That I Will Never Get Tired Of Hearing On All-Holiday Radio. List is after the jump; feel f...

By Maura Johnston Jay-Z, American Gangster Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III Lupe Fiasco, The Cool Nas T.I., Paper Trail Estelle feat. Kanye West, "American Boy" Flo Rida feat. T-Pain, "Low" John Legend feat. Andre 3000, "Green Light" Lil Wayne feat. T-Pain, "Got Money" Lupe Fiasco feat. Matthew Santos, "Superstar"

By Maura Johnston • "If West had interspersed the more mechanical tracks with some that were the exact opposite—say, simple piano interludes provided by his old collaborators John Legend or Jon Brion—he might have made a masterpiece. Instead, he's merely given us an extremely intriguing, sporadically...

 NY - Nov 19, 2008 Love Lockdown" struck me as a cross between lousy Junior Boys and tolerable T-Pain, meaning nothing I'd ever reach for on my own, for pleasure. ...

By Michaelangelo Matos THE BEST TRACK: When you're dealing with what is essentially a novelty record, go for the funniest track. In this case, that's "RoboCop," from its chase-scene-in-an-8-bit -video-game intro beat to the lyric, which makes liberal references to movies that predate Kanye's high school gr...

By Maura Johnston First he claimed to have pattered the interiors for his "Love Lockdown" video after Patrick Bateman's apartment in Mary Harron's film version of American Psycho; now, he's claiming to have similar music taste as the titular maniac, saying that "The whole album is shit that 50 [Cent] wou...

By Maura Johnston FAVORITE FEMALE SINGER Alicia Keys Rihanna Carrie Underwood FAVORITE R&B SONG No One" by Alicia Keys Take A Bow" by Rihanna With You" by Chris Brown FAVORITE HIP-HOP SONG Good Life" by Kanye West Lollipop" by Lil Wayne featuring Static Major Low" by Flo Rida featuring T-Pain

By Chris Molanphy 2. Britney Spears, "Womanizer" (LW No. 1, 181,000 downloads) 3. T.I. feat. Rihanna, "Live Your Life" (LW No. 2, 180,000 downloads) 4. Kevin Rudolf feat. Lil Wayne, "Let It Rock" (LW No. 7, 142,000 downloads) 8. Kanye West, "Love Lockdown" (LW No. 8, 96,000 downloads)

By Chris Molanphy 2. T.I. feat. Rihanna, "Live Your Life" (LW No. 3, 4 weeks) 4. Britney Spears, "Womanizer" (LW No. 1, 3 weeks) 6. Rihanna, "Disturbia" (LW No. 6, 18 weeks) 7. Kevin Rudolf feat. Lil Wayne, "Let It Rock" (LW No. 7, 8 weeks) 10. T-Pain feat. Lil Wayne, "Can't Believe It" (LW No. 8, 12 weeks)

By Al Shipley Because MySpace is about the last place I'd look to follow a music chart, the first I heard of Hollywood Undead was this past summer, when Baltimore's Virgin Mobile Festival held a Book The Band contest in which the public voted on a band to open the festival's second day. And of course, the co...

By Maura Johnston The newest track to leak from Kanye West's forthcoming 808s And Heartbreak is "Heartless," which has lyrics that sort of depict the "anger/grief" stage of breakup grief. Over a track that sounds like a calliope breathing its last before going up to that great circus tent in the sky, an Auto...

By Michaelangelo Matos At the end of my 2007 poll essay, I mentioned that Kanye West was clearly trying to ingratiate himself to the indie audience: fake videos with Will Oldham and Zack Galifinakis, collaborations with Daft Punk, dropping in on upstart indie MCs' videos. Judging from The Fader Blog's play-by-...

By Maura Johnston FAVORITE MALE RAP/HIP-HOP ARTIST Flo Rida Lil Wayne Kanye West FAVORITE RAP/HIP-HOP ALBUM Jay-Z, American Gangster Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III Kayne West, Graduation ARTIST OF THE YEAR Lil Wayne Chris Brown Alicia Keys Eagles Coldplay

By Chris Molanphy Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs 3. T-Pain feat. Lil Wayne, "Can't Believe It," (LW No. 2, 13 weeks) 7. Lil Wayne feat. T-Pain, "Got Money" (LW No. 7, 21 weeks) 8. T.I. feat. Rihanna, "Live Your Life" (LW No. 16, 4 weeks) 9. Keyshia Cole, "Heaven Sent" (LW No. 13, 28 weeks)

By Chris Molanphy 3. Kanye West, "Love Lockdown" (LW No. 3, 2 weeks) 4. Rihanna, "Disturbia" (LW No. 4, 15 weeks) 5. M.I.A., "Paper Planes" (LW No. 6, 11 weeks) 7. T-Pain feat. Lil Wayne, "Can't Believe It" (LW No. 8, 9 weeks) 8. Ne-Yo, "Closer" (LW No. 7, 24 weeks) 10. Estelle feat. Kanye West, "American Boy" (LW No. 10, 24 weeks)

By Maura Johnston • "Paper Trail does succeed at banking enough strong singles, including 'Swagga Like Us,' with Jay-Z and Kanye West, and 'Swing Ya Rag,' with Swizz Beatz, to keep T.I. on the charts during his upcoming incarceration. Maybe he can use all that time to decide which side of his personality he pla...

By Chris Molanphy Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs 2. T-Pain feat. Lil Wayne, "Can't Believe It," (LW No. 4, 11 weeks) 7. Young Jeezy feat. Kanye West, "Put On" (LW No. 8, 20 weeks) 9. Lil Wayne feat. T-Pain, "Got Money" (LW No. 12, 19 weeks) 10. Keyshia Cole, "Heaven Sent" (LW No. 9, 26 weeks)

By Dan Gibson I'm a big fan of Jay-Z, but outside of the States and Hip Hop circles, no one really knew who he was until he married Beyonce'," said Fif in the interview. 50 Cent: 'No One Knew Jay-Z Until He Married Beyonce' [HipHopDX] 50 Cent Thinks Beyonce Made Jay-Z [MTV UK]

By Maura Johnston 9. Estelle feat. Kanye West, "American Boy" Streamable from Estelle's MySpace page; not available for purchase via widget, despite presence on Amazon. (It would appear that the Estelle insta-tribute band the Studio All-Stars don't have a MySpace page.)

By Chris Molanphy 5. Jay-Z & T.I. feat. Kanye West & Lil Wayne, "Swagga Like Us" (CHART DEBUT) 8. T-Pain feat. Lil Wayne, "Can't Believe It" (LW No. 12, 7 weeks) 9. Estelle feat. Kanye West, "American Boy" (LW No. 53, 22 weeks) 10. Lil Wayne feat. T-Pain, "Got Money" (LW No. 15, 16 weeks)

By Kate Richardson In addition to making hit records and wearing funky sunglasses, Kanye West is also very good at helping other celebrities gauge just how famous they are. It's called the Kanye Famous Test, and it's quite simple: if Kanye West sees you in a public place, mistakes you for an innocent civilian...

By Maura Johnston Lyricist of the Year Jay-Z Lil Wayne Nas T.I. Kanye West MVP of the Year DJ Khaled Jay-Z Lil Wayne T.I. Kanye West CD of the Year Jay-Z – American Gangster Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III Lupe Fiasco – Lupe Fiasco’s “The Cool” Nas – Untitled Kanye West – Graduation

By Maura Johnston Kanye West is out of jail and back in the studio, and he's promising loyal readers of his blog that he'll "rant later" about the paparazzo he got into a scuffle with yesterday, saying that while he's normally OK with people taking his picture, "this guy wasn't cool." I bet he was a total squid b...

By Maura Johnston In the wake of Kid Rock finding success by holding his album back from iTunes while having a fairly big radio hit, Kid's label Atlantic Records decided to experiment with the Kid's strategy, pulling the British singer Estelle's album Shine from the iTunes Store two weeks ago. The move, whi...

By Chris Molanphy Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs 1. Jazmine Sullivan, "Need U Bad" (LW No. 4, 17 weeks) 2. Keyshia Cole, "Heaven Sent" (LW No. 2, 22 weeks) 3. Rihanna, "Take a Bow" (LW No. 1, 18 weeks) 4. Lil Wayne, "A Milli" (LW No. 3, 18 weeks) 5. Young Jeezy feat. Kanye West, "Put On" (LW No. 5, 16 weeks)

By Maura Johnston Nominees for the MTV Video Music Awards, which take place Sept. 7 in Los Angeles: BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS Erykah Badu, "Honey" Coldplay, "Violet Hill" Missy Elliott, "Ching-A-Ling" Linkin Park, "Bleed It Out" Kanye West, "Good Life"

By Maura Johnston Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and T.I. twist M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" into "Swagger Like Us," which West says exhibits "THE RAP OLYMPIC TEAM!" (caps and punctuation his, of course). I'm hoping that the video features at least one fancy model who's wearing an outfit that looks like an umpteen-la...

By Maura Johnston According to mixtape maestro Mick Boogie, "most, if not all" of Jay-Z's forthcoming Blueprint 3 will be produced by Kanye West, and Jay will be letting the finished version of "Jockin' Jay-Z," which he previewed at one of West's Madison Square Garden shows last week, out to the Internet a...

By Maura Johnston Kanye West was kind enough to post the professionally shot, high-quality clip of Jay-Z dropping by his Madison Square Garden show last night to perform a snippet from a new, Kanye-produced track off The Blueprint III, which will I guess be called "Jockin' Jay-Z." I bet you the people who we...

By Maura Johnston Britney Spears - "Piece Of Me" Director: Wayne Isham Lupe Fiasco - "Superstar" Director: Hype Williams Lil Wayne - "Lollipop" Directors: Gil Green & Dwayne Carter Kanye West - "Homecoming" Director: Hype Williams Video Music Awards [MTV.com]

By Maura Johnston In 2006, they were best buds, but now Barack Obama and Ludacris have a bit of a fraught relationship thanks to the MC's pro-Obama freestyle, "Politics As Usual," that showed up on DJ Drama's latest Gangsta Grillz mix. Apparently verses like "McCain don't belong in any chair unless he's par...

By Chris Molanphy Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs 1. Keyshia Cole, "Heaven Sent" (LW No. 1, 17 weeks) 2. Lil Wayne, "A Milli" (LW No. 2, 13 weeks) 3. Alicia Keys, "Teenage Love Affair" (LW No. 4, 23 weeks) 5. Rihanna, "Take a Bow" (LW No. 7, 13 weeks) 7. Young Jeezy feat. Kanye West, "Put On" (LW No. 9, 11 weeks)

By Maura Johnston Ghost Blogger: For The Right Price I Can Make Your Blog Tighter [Marcus Troy] Meet Kanye West's Ghost Blogger [Sandra Rose] I DON'T KNOW WHO THE HELL THIS IS... BUT I COVERED HIS NAME AND FACE SO HE WOULDN'T GET THE PUB HE WAS OBVIOUSLY LOOKIN' 4! [kanYe West: Blog]

By Chris Molanphy No. 1: Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" No. 21: Lil Wayne feat. T-Pain, "Got Money" No. 27: Usher feat. Beyonce and Lil Wayne, "Love in This Club Part II" No. 29: Lil Wayne, "A Milli" No. 79: Lloyd feat. Lil Wayne, "Girls Around the World" No. 92: Lil Wayne featuring Jay-Z, "Mr. Carter"

By Maura Johnston Have you ever wondered if Kanye West was the type of kid who, during his school years, would get pissed off when he "only" scored a B+ on an exam? OK, it's probably obvious that he was, and still is. But signing off his response to Entertainment Weekly's pretty-decent-overall review of his to...

By Jess Harvell 1. Maroon 5, It Won't Be Soon Before Long 2. Kanye West, Graduation 3. Amy Winehouse, Back To Black 4. Daughtry 5. Colbie Caillat, Coco 6. Linkin Park, Minutes To Midnight 7. High School Musical 2 8. Timbaland, Shock Value 9. John Mayer, Continuum 10. Hairspray (Soundtrack)

By Anono-Critic Rolling Stone, Paste, XXL and probably a bunch of other mags went with covers of Kanye West in the weeks and months leading up to last week's release of Graduation. While the October Blender may seem timely, hitting newsstands a few days before West became the newly minted best-selling rec...

By Anono-Critic So here's 50 Cent and Kanye West, right on time for Tuesday's much-anticipated releases of Curtis and Graduation, on the cover of the Sept. 20 Rolling Stone. Brings back fond memories of Britain's Battle Of Fall 1995, in which the unapologetically mercenary, loudly populist Oasis and the...