Kanye West!

[Black Rose]

Come on Kanye :)

[busybeeburns]

 

Kanye West' 3rd album, ‘Graduation’ is locked and loaded for a September 11th release on Hip-Hop Since 1978 / Roc-A-Fella Records. One of the most anticipated albums of the year, ‘Graduation’ features the smash singles “Stronger” and “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” accompanied by the groundbreaking videos co-directed by West and acclaimed director Hype Williams.

 

As “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” – the DJ Toomp banger featuring a newly remixed verse from Young Jeezy and an unlikely alternate video from comedian Zach Galifianakis – heats up in the streets, the clubs, and urban radio stations across the country, its synth-heavy, Daft Punk-sampling counterpart “Stronger,” is blazing trails at Rhythmic Top 40 and pop radio.

 

On ‘Graduation,’ West continues to break rules and obliterate boundaries, pushing the music and the genre forward as only he can. Heavy synth patches surface throughout, as the influence of global pop culture and a retro-future aesthetic seeps into Kanye’s signature, soulful, sample-laden sound. Lyrically, West vacillates between the contemplative and the irreverent.

 

On “Good Life,” the album’s third single, Kanye and T-Pain encourage us to “throw ya hands up in the sky” over a lazy, irresistible, PYT-sampled beat. On “Homecoming,” a sparse, piano-and-drum driven track co-written by and featuring Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Kanye continues to pay homage to his native Chicago as Martin asks “Do you think about me now and then? Well, I’m comin’ home again….maybe we can start again.”

 

‘Graduation’ is already the #2 album on iTunes, and “Stronger” has reached #2 on the iTunes singles chart. Last week, MTV announced Kanye as a VMA performer and multiple nominee, taking away 5 nods including “Video Of The Year” for “Stronger.” The VMAs air live on September 9th.

 

Kanye West’s last album, 2005’s ‘Late Registration,’ debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts with over 860,000 copies sold in its week of release, was nominated for the Grammy for Album of The Year, and won the Grammy for Rap Album of The Year.

 

Stay tuned for more on Kanye West, including developing information on ‘Graduation,’ live performances, television appearances and more.

 

‘Graduation’ is now available for pre-order at Amazon. Visit the music database for more information.

 

http://music.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1343136.php/Rapper_Kanye_West_ready_for_%91Graduation%92

[Jack]

It's gonna be brilllllllllllliant :D

[busybeeburns]

Kanye thinks he's 'the best'

 

Kanye is certainly a fan... of himself!

 

Kanye West has reportedly declared that he thinks he is "one of the greatest rappers of all time".

 

The 30-year-old - who is set to release his new album Graduation - also revealed that he loved working alongside Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, who sings on one of the tracks, called Homecoming.

 

Kanye apparently told the Daily Star: "I loved working with him. That's one of my favourite songs.

 

"It doesn't have any special effects, just a serious hook and serious chords. It's a stadium song."

 

The star added that he wants to make songs "that still connect with people in 20 years time".

 

Kanye - who reportedly has a pop at Jay-Z in one of the new tracks - admitted: "Bad news travels fast so I expect some people to focus on certain lines.

 

"But I also sing, 'If you admire someone you should tell 'em/No one get flowers when you can still smell them'.

 

"When I played it to Jay he was emotional."

 

http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/article.html?in_article_id=61698&in_page_id=7&in_a_source=

[Guest Grace]

i'm so looking forward to his new album although i'm no very much into hip hop, but Kanye is so different.

i already love "Stronger".

hehehe, yeah, and i'm not a big fan of hip hop artists sampling old songs, but Kanye does it with style. he's awesome and i'm so curious about the Chris Martin tracks!!

(he's definitely better than 50!!!)

[crawlinwithin]

i like stronger, its pretty good and i can't say i'm a huge fan of kanye to begin with but again i must admit his new song is great

[Matter-Eater Lad]

I love his music, but I cant stand him. He's a racist.

[Jack]

He hosted Friday Night Live.

 

I think he's brilliant. One of my favourite artists. As I'm about to say in my list of 5 artists in that thread.

[busybeeburns]

Kayne Graduates September 11

 

 

Kanye West’s 3rd album, Graduation is locked and loaded for a September 11, 2007 release on Hip-Hop Since 1978 / Roc-A-Fella Records. One of the most anticipated albums of the year, Graduation features the smash singles “Stronger” and “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” accompanied by the groundbreaking videos co-directed by West and acclaimed director Hype Williams.

 

As “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” – the DJ Toomp banger featuring a newly remixed verse from Young Jeezy and an unlikely alternate video from comedian Zach Galifianakis – heats up in the streets, the clubs, and urban radio stations across the country, its synth-heavy, Daft Punk-sampling counterpart “Stronger,” is blazing trails at Rhythmic Top 40 and pop radio.

 

On Graduation, West continues to break rules and obliterate boundaries, pushing the music and the genre forward as only he can. Heavy synth patches surface throughout, as the influence of global pop culture and a retro-future aesthetic seeps into Kanye’s signature, soulful, sample-laden sound. Lyrically, West vacillates between the contemplative and the irreverent.

 

On “Good Life,” Graduation’s third single, Kanye and T-Pain encourage us to “throw ya hands up in the sky” over a lazy, irresistible, PYT-sampled beat. On “Homecoming,” a sparse, piano-and-drum driven track co-written by and featuring Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Kanye continues to pay homage to his native Chicago as Martin asks “Do you think about me now and then? Well, I’m comin’ home again….maybe we can start again.” On the strength of a 5 week pre-order campaign launched on August 7, Graduation is already the #2 album on iTunes, and “Stronger” has reached #2 on the iTunes singles chart. Last week, MTV announced Kanye as a VMA performer and multiple nominee, taking away 5 nods including “Video Of The Year” for “Stronger.” The VMAs air live on September 9th.

 

http://www.urbannetwork.com/cms/index.php?news=1046

[mc_squared]

He hosted Friday Night Live.

 

 

Don't you mean Friday Night Project?:confused:

[Guest kmm1482]

Seems to me, as a hip-hop outsider, that there IS a difference between actual hip-hop like Kanye/Mos Def/Common/John Legend and "shit"-hop Jeezy and Lil John and the like. The first group can actually sing and sings about social issues/life/politics/world events and the latter only sings about how their next drug deal is gonna get them paid, or how shiny they can get their grills and their dubs. Kanye seems to understand music, and doesn't see it as just a paycheck. He branches out like Jay-Z did. Kanye has Chris and likes the Killers, Jay also had Chris. They don't alienate themselves as much the "thugs" do. I use to despise everything hip-hop and rap with a flaming PASSION! But Kanye has me intrigued with Daft Punk and John Mayer and Chris, I'll be checking him (and NOT fiddy) out on Sept. 11th!

[mc_squared]

Seems to me, as a hip-hop outsider, that there IS a difference between actual hip-hop like Kanye/Mos Def/Common/John Legend and "shit"-hop Jeezy and Lil John and the like. The first group can actually sing and sings about social issues/life/politics/world events and the latter only sings about how their next drug deal is gonna get them paid, or how shiny they can get their grills and their dubs. Kanye seems to understand music, and doesn't see it as just a paycheck. He branches out like Jay-Z did. Kanye has Chris and likes the Killers, Jay also had Chris. They don't alienate themselves as much the "thugs" do. I use to despise everything hip-hop and rap with a flaming PASSION! But Kanye has me intrigued with Daft Punk and John Mayer and Chris, I'll be checking him (and NOT fiddy) out on Sept. 11th!

 

You do have a point. Kanye showed himself to be very eloquent when he hosted Friday Night Project, can speak proper ENGLISH and is anti-bling!!:cool:

[twistedlogic149]

Has the album leaked yet?

[Jack]

Don't you mean Friday Night Project?:confused:

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah.

 

I got mixed up between Friday Night Project and Saturday Night Live :cry:

[mc_squared]

Yeah.

 

I got mixed up between Friday Night Project and Saturday Night Live :cry:

 

Oh, well - better luck next time!!:P

[d.B.g]

Has the album leaked yet?

 

 

no it hasn't!

 

I'll try to post it, and if not IT, then most definitely "Homecoming" as soon as it does. rest assured. The album is to be released in 19 days, so the leak is just a few days away.

[Black Rose]

I have a wild idea, why don't you wait until the day it gets released and buy the CD instead of illegally downloading it?

[Guest kmm1482]

Where's the fun in waiting?:)

[busybeeburns]

Kanye West: A more mature rapper, trying to be cool

 

 

NEW YORK: It was trademark Kanye West petulance. Late last year at the MTV Europe Music Awards, his clip for "Touch the Sky" lost the award for video of the year to "We Are Your Friends," by the electronic musicians Justice vs. Simian. As So Me, the director of the winning video, was accepting the award, West, the multiplatinum rapper-producer, jumped onstage and interrupted him.

 

"Hell, no!" West shouted. He boasted that his video cost $1 million and ranted, "If I don't win, your awards show loses credibility."

 

West had long had a reputation as a venter, a performer whose public persona was refreshingly unchecked. When he proclaimed that "George Bush doesn't care about black people" on a telethon after Hurricane Katrina, he helped galvanize the hip-hop world. This MTV outburst, though, came off like the gripes of a typical egotist. Suddenly he seemed like a blowhard, an ingrate. His outburst was posted on YouTube and widely mocked.

 

"A complete momentum killer" is how West sheepishly described the incident one recent evening as he relaxed at Chung King Studios in New York, where he was finishing his third album, "Graduation," due Sept. 11 on Def Jam Records. Kicking off a pair of silver Yves Saint Laurent high-top sneakers, he compared himself to a giant stomping on "the people's champ." The day after the awards, he said, he holed up in his hotel room, chastened, ruminating over the bad press. "It was like I had killed somebody," he said.

 

It was one in a series of regrettable events and choices that brought out the relentless self-questioner in him. West, 30, began to re-examine every aspect of his career, from his music to his image to his fashion sense. "Certain ways that I approached things, I could have done it with more tact and more class," he said.

 

In part "Graduation" is the product of those efforts. It is his most eclectic album, drawing on a wide musical palette, including classic rock and dance music. And these musical shifts coincide with West's developing his interests in other areas. He nods to hipster culture with an album cover designed by the Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami and an alternate video for "Can't Tell Me Nothing" starring the alternative comedian Zach Galifianakis, who filmed it at his North Carolina farm after he was personally solicited by West. Galifianakis lip-syncs to the song as he drives a tractor, accompanied by the indie-rocker Will Oldham and a troupe of clog dancers.

 

"He likes branching out and doing these odd things with his music," said Galifianakis, who added that he tried to connect West and Oldham to discuss a potential collaboration. "It also expands his reach a bit."

 

West is no longer just concerned with being popular; he also wants to be cool. But given the double-digit decline in rap sales this year and West's status as one of few bankable hip-hop superstars, it's a potentially risky time to be broadening, or diluting, his palette. Rap loyalists may blanch at his new directions, but West has never been solely beholden to rap fans or to rap modes of thought. While other hip-hop stars (50 Cent, Timbaland) have been flirting lately with pop collaborations to extend their brands, West has succeeded in large part by imposing his ornate style of hip-hop onto the mainstream.

 

And sometimes on rap fans as well. His current single, "Stronger," which samples the innovative French DJ duo Daft Punk, has been well received. "For hip-hop stations that actually play some progressive hip-hop, this is a good thing for the genre," said Ebro Darden, program director of Hot 97, the New York FM radio station, of West's sometimes unconventional reference points.

 

A native of Chicago, West emerged on the hip-hop scene six years ago as a traditionalist producer, resurrecting the dusty sounds of early 1990s New York-style rap and polishing them to a pop sheen. But while clearly steeped in hip-hop's sonic traditions, he was an outsider to its lyrical ones, rapping on "The College Dropout," his 2004 debut, about higher education, class struggle and his own self-doubts in ways particular to his middle-class upbringing. (His mother was a college professor, his father a photojournalist.) The result was a success with both hip-hop's mainstream and its alternative (or "backpacker") wing. ( West wore a backpack, but it was by Louis Vuitton.) "Late Registration," his follow-up from 2005, tackled similar subject matter and was more musically adventurous and ostentatious.

 

To date his most successful songs — "Jesus Walks," "All Falls Down" and "Gold Digger" — have centered on larger ideas, but overall the tracks on "Graduation" are less conceptual, and less orchestrated, than his previous work. He samples Elton John and Mountain and includes a piano jam, "Homecoming," featuring Coldplay's Chris Martin, which recalls early Billy Joel. The album's subject matter hops from casual boasting ("Barry Bonds") to an ode to Jay-Z, West's friend and mentor ("Big Brother"), to the self-explanatory ("Drunk and Hot Girls"). In parts, like the astral "Flashing Lights," he is at his best, but unlike his previous albums "Graduation" doesn't completely cohere.

 

As he listened to "Graduation" tracks at Chung King, West was so swaggering and loudmouthed that he seemed to absorb all of the energy in the room. But in between bouts of fist pumping he made earnest eye contact with the engineers and musicians and other people around him, clearly seeking approbation. "He understands what people can bring to him, and he's not scared to reach for that," said Alain (A-Trak) Macklovitch, West's DJ

 

Time and self-reflection seem to have sanded down some of his rougher edges. While he is still given to pronouncements about his greatness, he no longer appears to be waging war. Recently the rappers Beanie Sigel and 50 Cent taunted him publicly, but West didn't snipe back.

 

Jay-Z, the rapper and president of Def Jam Records, West's label, described some of his friend's old behavior as "overcompensation." Now West has realized "he doesn't have to fight for that respect," Jay-Z said. "He believes he has his just due. It's growth."

 

Darden said he thought West had become "smarter and more strategic in his movements," and West does seem increasingly aware of the multiple audiences he would like to cultivate. To wit: the "Graduation" song with the most "blatant hit-recordness," as West called it, is "Good Life," a relaxed, airy, radio-friendly collaboration with this year's cameo king, T-Pain. But in a nice twist, the video for that song was directed by West's former nemesis, So Me. The two have even been spotted together at the trendy Los Angeles dance club Cinespace. If you can't beat them, co-opt them.

 

Still, West doesn't always get it right. "I mess up so much," he said of his forays into fashion, art and the like. He pontificated at length about some of his missteps, particularly with style. (The lavender tuxedo he wore to the 2007 Grammys is a particular sore spot.) "For me to not be on the Vanity Fair best-dressed list, it's good," he said. "It's motivation. Some people are gifted at specific things, but I had to develop a certain taste level. The thing I'm most talented at is the ability to learn."

 

Macklovitch has witnessed that curiosity. "I've seen him, in Japan, go to the bookstore and spend hundreds of dollars to learn about art or architects," he said. "There's kind of a naïveté there sometimes, but this guy is trying to learn about the world."

 

Murakami, the artist, echoed the sentiment. "His pursuit of uncompromised detail made me feel at times like there was another me besides myself," he said via e-mail through a translator.

 

Not all of West's new reference points are so studiedly cool, though. "I've got to make music like a little kid," he said of his pop instincts. "That's what made me successful to this point." He seeks out new musical inspiration not on BET but on VH1. The mainstream rock bands the Fray and All-American Rejects are among his favorites. He heard the snare drum he used on "I Wonder," a song from the new album, while shopping for furniture at Moss.

 

"I love TV on the Radio's production," he said, referencing the critically acclaimed New York indie-rockers, "but man, at the end of the day, Keane and the Killers have bigger hooks." West stops, considers, then laughs. "The last thing I need now in my quest to be cool is for somebody to think I dissed TV on the Radio."

 

In early August West went to MTV for an afternoon taping of "TRL," which doubled as a news conference for this year's MTV Video Music Awards. West was nominated in five categories, and the slate of nominees seemed almost tailored to his personal tastes, hip-hop stars like Timbaland, Rihanna and Akon on one side and ascendant hipster faves like Lily Allen and Peter, Bjorn and John on the other. ( West will perform with Allen at the awards ceremony in early September, and he collaborated with Peter, Bjorn and John two weeks ago at a festival in Sweden.)

 

In the best video category, up against West's "Stronger," was a familiar name: Justice, nominated for the inventive clip for "DANCE" It looked like an obvious trap, and for a moment it seemed certain that West would fall right into it. "If anyone goes to YouTube and sees the video that I lost to, you'll see that I was robbed," he told the cameras, referring to last year's upset.

 

But in the end he didn't take the bait. "I would feel better to lose to this video right here, because this video is completely genius," he said of "DANCE," with what sounded like honest enthusiasm. "I think my video's the best, but, you know, I could respect that." It wasn't quite humility, but it was a start.

 

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/27/arts/kanye.php?page=3

[busybeeburns]

Kanye West on Entourage (Includes Good Life Snippet)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6qmqggm7vk

 

(Thanks go to KanyeTalk.com)

[busybeeburns]

"Homecoming," Kanye West's much-anticipated collaboration with Chris Martin, is making its way around the blogosphere this afternoon and — amazingly! — it's actually pretty great. Martin eschews the usual schlocky mid-tempo stadium balladry for some flashy piano work that almost sounds like it could have come from Billy Joel (but in a good way!). The track seems like an easy sell to radio and should help pay for Kanye's next gold-plated sweater vest.

 

Still, though, if the Coldplay singer wants to be Kanye's favorite dorky white dude in 2007, he's got some stiff competition. Below, we see how the candidates measure up.

 

1. Chris Martin

Laugh all you want, but Kanye's newest BFF has some serious gangsta credentials — Martin was responsible for producing the fourth-best track on Jay-Z's Kingdom Come, an impressive feat given that Dr. Dre, Just Blaze, and West himself made the other beats.

 

2. Justin Timberlake

More of a frenemy these days, sadly. Kanye's repeatedly expressed his admiration for Timberlake, but, in a recent interview, he called JT his "nemesis" and "only competition."

 

3. Daft Punk

"Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," the 2001 hit by these space-helmeted Frenchmen, serves as the foundation for "Stronger," Kanye's current single. But Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo should probably be disqualified on the grounds that they are actually robots.

 

4. Peter, Bjorn, and John

Dopey white guys don't come much whiter or dopier than the ones in this Swedish indie-rock trio, but Kanye's sampled PB&J's "Young Folks" on a recent mix tape with impressive results, and even performed with them as his backup band.

 

5. John Mayer

There was a time when Ye and May were inseparable, but not nearly so much anymore. "Bittersweet," a track on which Mayer sung the hook, was left off Graduation, likely because it was terrible. Also, his recent cover of "Chocolate Rain" probably didn't help his case.

 

6. Zach Galifianakis

This portly comedian is easily our favorite geeky white guy. Kanye tasked him with making the video for his recent single "Can't Tell Me Nothing," and, well, this happened:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpwgYsYWwdc

 

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/08/who_will_be_kanyes_favorite_do.html

[RadioMad]

So, 'Graduation' has finally leaked.

[busybeeburns]

Kanye West: Graduation

 

2/5

 

The inclination to give someone the benefit of the doubt means that it’s in a mood of hope that one puts Kanye West’s new CD into the tray. At the same time a nagging voice tells you that, in popular music, album trilogies rarely end on a high. Not in the case of Meat Loaf with Bat Out of Hell III or Mike Oldfield and his Bells of diminishing returns. Even Blur, with The Great Escape, found there were only so many albums that a new-found love of Martin Amis could inspire.

 

In the case of Kanye West, fears were compounded by the release of Graduation’s trailer single, Stronger.

 

West’s decision to put his name on a record that involves him talking over one that Daft Punk made three years ago, suggested that the ideas might be running dry. Sure enough, after The College Dropout and Late Registration – two albums that managed effortlessly to deconstruct the bling-obsessed discourse of modern rap while still appealing to its core constituency – a sense of arrival and immediate anti-climax abounds. Good Life slips snugly into the template of a hip-hop summertime groove, but like much of what surrounds it, the ambience is oddly sedate. So bereft is Graduation of anything as stirring as Jesus Walks or Through the Wire, you suspect that West wasn’t even trying to emulate them.

 

Which prompts the question, just what was he trying to do? Some clues arrive with a brace of eerily inspired cuts at the centre of the album. The cheap Eighties synth sounds for which West has developed a strange fondness find their natural place amid the lairy Drunk and Hot Girls. Flashing Lights revolves around the sort of marauding keyboard motif to which Van Halen resorted in their attempts to adapt to the metal-hostile Eighties. His ripostes are not what they were either. As withering disses go, “People talk so much s*** about me at barber shops/ They forget to get their hair cut” is down there with, “I know you are but what am I?”

 

Neither is he altogether happy with his sometime mentor Jay-Z. Apparently, it was West’s idea to write a song with Chris Martin – that’s Martin on Homecoming singing a chorus that would struggle on to a B-side by his own band – but Jay-Z sneaked in first. This, then, is where we leave the most eagerly awaited hip-hop album of the year. A small set-to between America’s two most bankable rappers over the bloke out of Coldplay. A pretty pass.

 

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/cd_reviews/article2400266.ece

[Jack]

I have to admit, I'm not impressed yet.

[Jack]

I take the above comment back.

 

I like it.

 

It's growing on me.