Kanye West

Jay-Z's Great Gatsby Soundtrack Is a Failure

When the first trailer for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby was released a year ago, it was set to the music of Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," from the sometimes duo's incredibly self-important Watch the Throne album. On the surface it made sense. Jay-Z -- who retired as a rapper i ... More >>

Can You Match The Eyes To The Rapper They Belong To?

This is a ridiculous thing, to be sure; a game birthed in the crevices of 2 a.m. emails and WAY TOO MANY mp3s and SoundCloud links. And it's as simple as it is stupid as it is infinitythings. On the following page you'll find a picture of eight separate sets of eyes. Underneath the picture you'll ... More >>

The Worst Traffic Jam In The History Of The Man And Maybe Even The Universe

Here's what this is: It takes EXACTLY 17 minutes for me to get from the entrance ramp of the freeway near my house to the machine at my work where employees swipe in. I know this because I have made the drive roughly 1,400 times during my seven years of employment. I also know this because I have, o ... More >>

Top 10 "You Can't Tell Me Nothing" Rappers

In Macklemore's forthcoming single, "Can't Hold Us," he raps, "Nah they can't tell me nothing," thus continuing a long line of rappers to whom one can not tell nothing. It makes one wonder: Why are people always trying to tell rappers something? Why do the rappers refuse to listen? Why all the doub ... More >>

Why This Songs Sucks: The Worst Rap Tracks of 2012

Welcome to another installment of the worst rap songs of the year, brought to you by Why This Song Sucks. See also: Why This Song Sucks: The Worst Rap Tracks of 2011 They are all here this year: The all-the-way aged king, the suddenly mortal demigod, the former darling, the current darling, the m ... More >>

The Five Most Annoyingly Overplayed Songs at Greystone Manor

Greystone Manor is the trendy WeHo nightclub usually filled to capacity with A-listers, desperate housewives, Arabian sheiks, ball players, dot-com CEOs and others who have something to do with reality television. Any given Sunday night you might witness Drake buying twenty bottles or Rihanna and Ch ... More >>

Where Are the Women in EDM?

In the past three years, one woman has ranked in DJ Magazine's yearly Top 100 DJs poll. (Lisa Lashes, #75, 2009). The international EDM circuit is dominated by men like Justice, Diplo, Skrillex, Swedish House Mafia, Tiësto, David Guetta and Avicii, and the underground scene is as much of a boys clu ... More >>

The Dirty Projectors' David Longstreth on Wearing a Haz-Mat Suit in the Largest Landfill in the Country

To listen to Swing Lo Magellan is to hear David Longstreth holding something back. Released on July 10 on Domino Records, Magellan is the seventh full-length album Longstreth has recorded as the Dirty Projectors, and the third since 2007's Rise Above, an idiosyncratic interpretation of a Black Fla ... More >>

Azealia Banks - Coachella - 4/21/12

See also: Our Complete Coachella Coverage One assumes that thousands of people shouting, "I guess that cunt getting eaten" in unison has never happened at Coachella before. Yet you could hear just that yesterday during Azealia Banks' set; it was afternoon, and most of us weren't even drunk yet. ... More >>

Kris Bowers Played On Watch The Throne: He's At Catalina's Tomorrow Night

Thelonious Monk Jazz Institute​When most college students return home for winter break, they watch TV in the den and get drunk with high school friends. Pianist Kris Bowers, a 22-year old-graduate student at Julliard, however, has come home to Los Angeles with some big prizes, and will perfo ... More >>

Music Picks: Andrea Bocelli, Carina Round, A Hero A Fake

Also, Norma Jean, Jonathan Richman, Jay-Z and Kanye West and others

Pusha T on Vegas Nights, Partying with Rick Ross, and Driving Lamborghinis in the Club

Pusha T​See Also: Pusha T and Tyler the Creator's "Trouble On My Mind" Video Shoot "I've had a good fucking year and it's pretty amazing!" Pusha T, one half of the Neptunes-endorsed rap group The Clipse, sounds relaxed and happy as he prepares to release his new solo project, Fear Of God II: ... More >>

Fuck Guilty Pleasures: Limp Bizkit Had An Amazing Run

They don't like hairy buttholes​Fred Durst was the Kanye West of his day. Not to say he was as talented. But at the height of Limp Bizkit's fame -- and make no mistake, this was hundreds of millions of dollars of fame -- he was the same type of beloved villain. He succeed in that era's popul ... More >>

Blu Interview: We Chop It Up With ​L.A.'s Patron Saint of Lyricism

Blu ​Blu soundlessly materializes in Silverlake's La Mill coffee boutique. The rapper's aura is so serene it forms a barrier against the sounds of jittery fingertips flitting across keyboards and conversations that seem to be in fast forward. I think of a line from "Down to Earth," a song from ... More >>

D.O.C.'s Top Five D.O.C. Ghostwritten Songs

Brandon Showers​In the paper this week I get inside the head of D.O.C., who ghostewrote the bulk of the early Ruthless Records catalog and is all over The Chronic and Doggystyle. His own solo career was ascendent on the strength of his platinum debut No One Can Do It Better before a car accide ... More >>

Music Picks: Alison Krauss, Flying Lotus, My Morning Jacket

Also, Jaga Jazzist, Kid Cudi, Baths and others

Kanye West Lauches Limited-Edition Scarf Line

Bets on the first celeb to rock this one?​From CAPS LOCK rants to seizure-inducing music videos, Kanye West is anything but subtle. Combine that with his passion for fashion, and you have his new line of scarves. As the Daily Mail reports, the collaboration with French design partnership M/M ... More >>

New Coachella Passes Go On Sale! (If You Got $975 to Spare for VIP Service)

We're in the money! We're in the money! We're in the money and we got what it takes to get to Indiooooo!​While for you, me, and everyone we know Coachella has been sold-out for months, for members of an exclusive VIP website called GiltCity, this might not be the case. A tipster pointed us to ... More >>

Top 10 Songs About Presidents (in Honor of Presidents Day)

Remember Clinton and the sax?​ Monarchs, political authority figures, and presidents have been inspiring pissed-off punk rock anthems or passionate, pleased glorification--whether subtle or direct--since human beings could pick up an instrument and pluck or pound out a feeling. And given our ... More >>

Music Picks: Amy Kuney, Whispertown, the Civil Wars, Jake Bellows, Plan B

Also, Thom Bresh, Pictureplane, James Intveld and others

Top 5 Worst Publicity Stunts of 2010: Nudie Pics, Secret Shows, Kitty Videos and Viral Everything Else

Top 5 Worst Publicity Stunts Including Nudie Pics and Kitty Vids

Jackson Roddy, 18-Year-Old USC Student Who Attended Rave-Like 'Hard' Party, Critical After Six-Story Fall

Timothy NorrisGirls and guys at Hard.​Updated after the jump with reaction from the promoter. First posted at 12:22 p.m. See our slideshow of Hard Haunted Mansion here. You try to throw a good party, but there's always someone who goes a little too far. In this case, a USC student apparently ... More >>

Lil B Disses Kanye West and Claims He Killed Hip-Hop, Cormega Backs Him Up

Lil B to hip-hop: Eat my swag, bitch.​Bay Area rapper Lil B -- the one who brought you "Ellen DeGeneres," the song, only two weeks ago -- has struck again, releasing a new free song called "I Killed Hip Hop," subtitled ... "MESSAGE TO KANYE WEST." Lest you think it's little more than an atte ... More >>

Across the Universe: New Flying Lotus Video, Weezer Best Coast, RHCP Lawsuit, R.I.P Eyedea

Across the Universe: New Flying Lotus Video, Weezer Best Coast, RHCP Lawsuit, R.I.P Eyedea

Down in a Hole: Chilean Miner Mix Tape 2010

Down in a Hole: Chilean Miner Mix Tape 2010

Calling All Star Trakkies: Kiss-n-Grind Spins The Neptunes Tonight

Neptunes Grind-ING!​Started by Vikter Duplaix and Garth Trinidad sometime around late 2006, when it was promoted last-minute and solely by word-of-mouth, Kiss-n-Grind must be in summer school, cause lately they're so thematically well-structured. Tonight's studies Chad Hugo and Pharrell Willi ... More >>

Open Mike Eagle Unapologetically Talks About "Art Rap"

[Make sure to read Jeff Weiss' piece on Open Mike Eagle, from the LA Weekly print edition.] Open Mike Eagle - I Rock from Mush Records on Vimeo. In the first ten minutes of his acidic and excellent debut, "Unapologetic Art Rap," Open Mike Eagle samples Pavement and sings a portion of TV on the Ra ... More >>

The Madlib Mystique

An exclusive interview with underground hip-hop's most elusive producer

Top Entertainment Stories of 2009 Named; Jackson, L.A. Dominate List

​The death of Michael Jackson topped a list of top-ten entertainment stories for 2009, and headlines emanating from Los Angeles dominated the list. The survey of news editors was conducted by Associated Press. Its top stories: 1) The death of Michael Jackson; 2) the rise of singer Susan Boyle ... More >>

Michael Jackson Trailer Released for This Is It

Amid all the hooha over Kanye West's dick move last night at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York, the news that the trailer for the Michael Jackson documentary This Is It was released got lost. Well, here it is: Michael Jackson's This Is It in HD

LA People 2009: The Lovable Douche Bag — Parks and Recreation's Aziz Ansari

Buddies with Kanye, filming with Adam Sandler and Seth Rogan, the standup guy is making his name as Amy Poehler's new right-hand man

On the Eve of the Grammys, Heavy D Discusses His Nomination, Reggae, Diddy and More

To hip-hop fans in the early-'90s, Heavy D was the original "Overweight Lover." A rap generation later, he was name-dropped more in the reciting of one of hip-hop's most beloved lines: the first bars from another heavy weight, Notorious B.I.G's "Juicy." Now? Without Notorious it'd be a wonder if t ... More >>

Seeker of the Legend

2008's Top Ten Pop Songs

By Annie Zaleski Pop music often gets a bad rap for being disposable or vapid, and in many cases that's true. (Katy Perry, Danity Kane and the Pussycat Dolls, step right up!) But every year, a few irresistible bits of innovative ear candy rocket up the charts and seep into our subconscious. The ... More >>

Hitsville: The Year in Music, by the Numbers

You don't need a half-wit music critic to tell you it's been a remarkable year for America, one historians will be discussing and researching for centuries to come. War, financial collapse, politics, technology: All have been dinner-table topics for many Americans. Racial barriers in 2008 were dem ... More >>

The Tao of Jim Jones' "Pop Champagne" Ft. Special Guest Ignorance from Juelz Santana & Ron Browz

Thanks to O-Dub for putting me onto this gleeful bit of idiocy. If one cannot convince Rihanna to leave her Caribbean Chris Brown love nest to writhe in your video, one must do the next best thing: get her low-budget, Kool-Aid haired, tatted up, Trinidad & Tobagian equivalent. If ... More >>

The Many Moods of Rock the Bells

Hip-hop's been in a lull. Meet the new torchbearers

Oh Nose They Didn't

Prediction: N*E*R*D’s Seeing Sounds will be the soundtrack to a very sexy summer. Okay, maybe just ours. In Search Of still shakes up our decks (usually in the car) before a night of hot-spot hoppin,’ and after downloading the new one today (legally via the label), we gotta say, we’re feeling ... More >>

Grammy Kisses

Pre-awards parties; star spotting; survival of the hippest

So '07: The Way We Wore

How to know if you were a fashion victim in '07

Cross Rock

A historical celebration of pop crucifixions, from Morrison to Manson to Madonna

Music Picks

For the week of June 22 - 29

Clusterfucked

2005 in Words

Housequake!

DILATED PEOPLES at House of Blues, February 22

Rawk Your Body!

L.A. club DJs mix indie rock and hip-hop; world does not explode

grammy diary

Tue., Feb. 7 LL Cool J at the House of Blues Wed., Feb. 8 The Grammys at the Staples Center Now, for my personal awards

Nightranger

Satire, Punk and Politics

Or, black people don’t like George Bush

East Vs. West, Part II

February 24, and Tangier, February 25