Kanye West

BORN TO DANCE

Lady Gaga brings along the Scissor Sisters

Week In Review: Confirming Kanye's Inevitable Victory

​So we put out Pazz & Jop this week. We're pretty happy with it. As are Kanye West and Cee Lo Green, hopefully. Lots of essays and lists and numbers to absorb there, so spend some time if you haven't yet, and if you have, please enjoy our bonus post-mortem analysis: some context for Kanye's re ... More >>

Pazz & Jop Stats: On Kanye West's Dominance, And What The Poll Would've Looked Like Without Him

​"If there was any way you could confirm Kanye's inevitable victory early, that'd be a big help art-department-wise." So began Pazz & Jop editor Rob Harvilla's first note to me after voting closed in late December. Inevitability is not a statistical quality, but the magnitude of My Beautiful D ... More >>

Kanye West Wins One For the Douchebags

Our poll winner and his runner-up James Murphy turn their private flaws into public triumphs

Pazz & Jop Voter Comments: The Personals

Pazz & Jop Voter Comments: From Kanye West to The Suburbs

On Drake, Nicki Minaj, B.o.B., and the Art of the Debut-As-Pop-Crossover

Attack of the singing rappers

This Week in the Voice: Kanye, Kanye, Kanye! And Cee Lo, Too, and the Biebs...

​Kanye West dominates the 38th Annual Pazz Jop Critics' Poll as albums winner, with 3250 points and 266 mentions for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, while crowd favorite Cee Lo Green snags singles winner with 187 mentions for "Fuck You." But there's tons more in this week's musical retros ... More >>

Listen: Kanye West And Jay-Z, "H.A.M."

​And thus, as threatened, did Kanye West and Jay-Z debut the first track off their upcoming Watch the Throne just past the witching hour on 1-11-11. "H.A.M." is gleefully insane: Kanye chatters about white girls, Jay plays chicken with a Mack truck, and producer Lex Luger devises a hilariously ... More >>

Kanye West and Jay-Z Go Givenchy For New Single "H.A.M."

Did you enjoy your Kanye time off? Good. Because he's back, basically. Just in time for the tail end of the backlash to the backlash to the backlash, West and Jay-Z are ramping up their new project: Watch the Throne, a collaborative EP slated for early March. "H.A.M." is the first single--the god ... More >>

Download A Nicki Minaj-Centric Version Of Kanye West's "Monster" With Kanye West Conveniently Removed

​As we're now officially in My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy's backlash stage -- a function of both ambient critical regret and the super-queasy misogyny (and alleged Dr. Dog plagiarism) of the official "Monster" video -- perhaps its time to sidestep the question of whether you can separate K ... More >>

Did Kanye West Rip Off Dr. Dog For His "Monster" Video?

Not the Kanye video.​Just hours before New Year's Eve, an unfinished but largely coherent cut of the video for Kanye West's "Monster" leaked. It was...unsettling. West's use of the severed heads of dead women as props--and their lifeless bodies as vaguely sexual marionettes--in the clip was th ... More >>

The First Annual SOTC Nightlife Awards: Best Hotel Spot, Most Idiotic Venue-Imposed Music Ban, and More

Kanye West at the Boom Boom Room. Twitpic via MikeNouveau​The best thing about living in New York is that there's never a lack of things to do. We've given up countless hours of sleep to go see our favorite DJs, catch late-night shows, peek into neighborhood hangouts, and investigate the openi ... More >>

Rob Harvilla's Top 10 Albums Of 2010

Naturally, this dude is involved​Distilling a full year of furtive, easily distracted, constantly overwhelmed listening down to a mere 10 albums is a ridiculous, agonizing, thoroughly loathsome undertaking, and yet here we all are, pulling nine fully formed sonic universes together and capping ... More >>

Zach Baron's Top 10 Singles of 2010

Rich aliens, rich alienation. Still via connect.in.com​With sincere apologies to Chuck Eddy, my two favorite records of the year also produced my two favorite singles: funny how that happens. And though ten songs increasingly feels like about forty too few, especially when Dr. Luke is working, ... More >>

Was 2010 The Best Year For Music Ever? LCD Soundsystem and Nostalgia's Creeping Scourge

Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week! James Murphy, pulling no punches.​Dear fellow illumin ... More >>

After Only Three Weeks, Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Is Out of the Top 10--What Happened?

Four weeks ago, Kanye West stood on a Bowery Ballroom stage and, in a far ranging and now thoroughly documented speech, cited "perfect scores across the board" for his album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and made an ill-advised prediction: "To be slated to do 600,000 in the first week--and I ... More >>

Was 2010 The Best Year For Music Ever? Five SOTC Critics Discuss.

Great song, at least​Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: myself, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. Let us acknowledge at the onset that we are ripping this off fr ... More >>

Was 2010 The Best Year For Music Ever? Redeeming M.I.A.

Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week! ​Dear Rob, Sean, Rich, and Maura, I believe, as per ... More >>

The 10 Biggest Music Stories of 2010

Ah M.I.A., it just wasn't your year, was it? Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.​In 2010, Vampire Weekend and Arcade Fire both had #1 records. LCD Soundsystem, Spoon, MGMT, the National, M.I.A, and Sufjan Stevens all had albums debut in the top ten. Kanye West joined Twitter. Drake started a riot in New ... More >>

Week in Review: Who's Your Daddy?

​In the week we began our countdown of the 20 worst songs of 2010, we celebrated by mocking efforts from the Far East Movement, Ringo Starr, Godsmack, Trade Martin, and Lil Wayne. Where will Susan Boyle fall? Tune in next week and suffer more abuse until you find out.

Kanye West and Nicki Minaj Just Sold A Bunch Of Records

Last Tuesday night, Kanye West stood on a Bowery Ballroom stage and did the numbers: "To do an album right after the year that I had, and after all the 'Your career is over!' and 'Die, nigger, die!' and 'You'll never make music again!' And to come back and to do 100,000 the first day, digital alon ... More >>

Watch Hordes of Angry New Yorkers Boo Kanye West at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

You can forget sometimes, reading the rapturous reviews, that there are many people in this country who have never forgiven Kanye West for his notoriously checkered past and self-aggrandizing present. "Ya'll forget that I got called 'nigger' on Twitter so many times--yo, I lived that," West rapped ... More >>

Live: Kanye West At Bowery Ballroom, Ranting, Seething, And Enthralling

The 5 Most Awkward Interactions Between Kanye West and Rihanna in the New Interview

​Alright, alright, we know, but it's Kanye's Week, or Kanye's World, even, and we're just living it, so forgive us if our mind is a bit preoccupied with the guy right now. (We are far from the only ones.) And, when not tearing down the Bowery Ballroom, invoking the ire of the Twittersphere, do ... More >>

Week in Review: All Kanye, All The Time

​In the week Kanye West finally let us in on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (for the small price of $3.99!, we informed you of the rapper's last-minute Bowery Ballroom show, interviewed an intern who typed his Captcha faster than we did, and ultimately gave you a song-by-song breakdown of h ... More >>

Meet The One Man In New York Who Successfully Bought Tickets To Kanye West's Show at the Bowery Ballroom

Many tried but few succeeded when, at 11:58 a.m. or 11:59 a.m., we all started frantically hitting our refresh buttons, typing Captchas in as fast as we could, and generally doing everything in our power to get into tonight's "private" Kanye West show at the Bowery Ballroom. None of it worked, so ... More >>

The Reason Why Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Is $3.99 on Amazon Right Now

Behold, the Amazon-pixelated artwork of a man who will stop at nothing to be #1.​Many rap fans probably didn't notice a couple weeks ago when Taylor Swift's Speak Now debuted, selling over a million copies in its first week--the fastest sprint to that number since Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, i ... More >>

A Gallery Of Twitter Responses To Pitchfork's 10.0 Kanye West Review

So the big whoop today is that Pitchfork bestowed its first 10.0 review in nearly a decade on Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy ; penned by a dear friend of ours, rest assured this opinion has generated, in turn, a wide variety of online opinions -- outraged, bemused, intrigued, confu ... More >>

Why You Can't Hate Kanye West and Love My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy At the Same Time

​Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy doesn't come out until next week, but the reviews are already in. (Summary: it's a masterpiece.) In these pages, Sean Fennessey wrote at some length about the way West's embattled public persona crashes, again and again, into the music on his new ... More >>

Kanye West, Finally Unraveled

Plumbing the gorgeous nightmares of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday Has Leaked

​It exists. You have spent months (years?) worrying about Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday, fearing that the pleasingly psychotic Queens rapper's debut full-length wouldn't be pleasingly psychotic enough. Time to find out. It's out Monday officially but floated into the Internet ether late last night ... More >>

GOOD Friday: Kanye West "Looking For Trouble" With Pusha T, Cyhi Da Prince, Big Sean & J. Cole

​As the release of Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy on November 22 approaches, it seems to be hard for the man to focus on anything else. During a conference call late last week, which streamed online in its entirety, West all but ignored the clumsy questions lobbed his way; he w ... More >>

Kanye West Will Be Hosting Another Ustream Chat Today at 4 p.m.

Rap-Up​Back in early August, Kanye West made his Ustream debut, perching out on a Korean hotel balcony, the ocean stretching into the distance behind him. "I actually don't know a rapper before me that liked white people more than me, in all honesty," he said into the glow of his own computer ... More >>

The Ten Best Quotes From Kanye West's Epic Hot 97 Interview With Funkmaster Flex

Left to right: Pusha T, Funkmaster Flex, Kanye West. Photo via In Flex We Trust​It is a measure of Kanye West's proximity to the heart of the zeitgeist that even on the day after a disastrous midterm election, his name is front and center in the news cycle. The Internet is aflame today with th ... More >>

GOOD Friday: Kanye West, Jay-Z and Friends Celebrate Curtis Mayfield on "The Joy"

​This week Kanye West was exposed to the whole internet, just like he warned us about. Oh, and he finished his album. Then to cap it all off, he released "The Joy," a slow, magical entry in the GOOD Friday series. The track is straightforward, built on mood and sincerity, with little outward f ... More >>

See An (Alleged) Naked Picture of Kanye West

The inevitable scoop, such as it is--and if it is in fact real--goes to Media Take Out. Props to Kanye himself for confessing that this would some day happen on "Runaway," a song that we like just a tiny bit less today:

The 10 Best Posse Cuts of 2010 (So Far)

​Posse cuts are like friendlier versions of the WWE's Royal Rumble -- a platform designed to showcase all of the stars in the game, both up-and-coming and certified. Think back to the Main Source's 1991 "Live At The Barbecue," featuring Akinyele, Joe Fatal, and the debut of a rapper named Nas, ... More >>

Live: Kanye West! The GZA! Brooklyn Bowl! Offline! CMJ!

Twitpic via our pal Yancy Strickler​Kanye West Brooklyn Bowl Saturday, October 23 Better than: Pretty much everything but the Blow. Let us go now to Brooklyn Bowl, where the hour is just past 2 a.m., the enthusiastic but mostly ineffective CyHi Da Prynce is winding up his set, and bounding o ... More >>

GOOD Friday: Kanye West Preps for "Runaway" Video Release, Drops "Don't Look Down"

At 8 p.m. ET the Kanye West-directed 35-minute music video, starring Selita Ebanks and narrated by Nicki Minaj, will debut concurrently on MTV, MTV2, BET, MTV.com, BET.com and VH1.com. (The video above showcases the opening scene.) Leading up the premiere, West again came through on his promise of ... More >>

The 10 Best Verses From Kanye West's Good Friday Project, So Far

​As sustained, goodwill-generating rap publicity stunts go, Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Fridays series is almost entirely without precedent. Other rappers, guys like Freeway and Crooked I, have given away free music in regular installments, but those guys are B-listers and supporting players, and th ... More >>

GOOD Friday: Kanye West, Pusha T and Friends Misbehave on "Take One for the Team"

​It's oddly appropriate, though almost certainly not intentional, that the week rumors started to spread about naked photos of Kanye West, he releases his raunchiest GOOD Friday track yet. Of course, he pretty much told us this was going to happen. "I sent this girl a picture of my dick," he a ... More >>

GOOD Friday: Kanye West Reaches Back For Child Rebel Soldier's "Dont Stop!"

​In May of 2007, Kanye West, Pharrell Williams and Lupe Fiasco released the Thom Yorke-sampling "Us Placers" as the super-group Child Rebel Soldier (CRS) on West's Graduation-teasing Can't Tell Me Nothing mixtape. Seven months later the trio put out a video for the song. Then for three years, ... More >>

Kanye West And Nicki Minaj Are Putting Out New Records In The Same Week, For Some Reason

​​And so it came to pass that the two most anticipated hip-hop albums of the fall will be released 24 hours apart, if their respective voluminous Twitter accounts are to be believed, and given the airtight rapper/Twitter double helix these days, why wouldn't you believe them. From an inc ... More >>

GOOD Friday: Kanye West Begrudgingly Drops "Christian Dior Denim Flow," Preps for SNL

​Kanye West was not himself this week. Online, at least, where West has enjoyed repeated recent successes, he was frustrated and felt betrayed by the leak of an unauthorized, unfinished track called "Lost in the World." "It would have seemed like since I give free music every week even the low ... More >>

GOOD Friday: Kanye West feat. RZA, Jay-Z, Pusha T, Swizz Beatz & CyHi Da Prynce, "So Appalled"

​For the second consecutive GOOD Friday, Kanye West delivered something of an epic, with the new "So Appalled" and last week's "Lord Lord Lord" totaling over fourteen minutes of rap music between the two, and featuring Swizz Beatz, Mos Def, Raekwon, Charlie Wilson, RZA, Jay-Z, Pusha T, and CyH ... More >>

GOOD Friday: Kanye West Comes Late With "Lord Lord Lord"

​Kanye West just keeps coming through, in a variety of styles and moods, on different days and with a wide range of friends. On this most recent GOOD Friday, West delivered the track somewhere close to 5 a.m. Blame it on Swizz Beatz, who is featured on "Lord Lord Lord," along with Mos Def, Rae ... More >>

The Golden Age of Advice Rap Starts Now

"When you've run out of peaks," Jon Caramanica wrote in yesterday's Times, by way of reviewing Monday's ridiculous Jay-Z extravaganza, "all that's left are ridiculous, sublime stunts, new ways to climb old mountains." This is counterintuitive but true: a guy like Jay-Z has been a ... More >>

Detroit Producer Black Milk's Top Ten Albums Of the Last Decade

​"I don't hear anything else out there like my record." So says a confident Black Milk, the Detroit hip-hop producer who's struck 2010's boldest titular move to date by electing to call his fifth solo project Album Of The Year (out today). With his gritty-yet-soulful beats, Black Milk is often ... More >>

GOOD Friday: Kanye West Brings the Whole Family to "Good Friday"

​If you're a fan of rap music, you don't believe in promises. From release dates to teased collaborations to entire albums, you'll believe it when you see it. So for those waiting for Kanye West to slip up on his GOOD Friday promise -- a new track every week until Christmas -- last night seeme ... More >>