Kanye West

Salva Mixes Up Dance Music and Hip-Hop, Gets Famous

You only need one song to blow up, and sometimes it doesn't even need to be originally yours. Salva learned this in June when the electronic producer collaborated with RL Grime to remix Kanye West's "Mercy." With no premeditated plan or press campaign, the pair threw it up on Salva's Soundcloud page ... More >>

Kim Kardashian & Kanye's New Bel Air Home Has A Real Housewives Connection

As if the prospect of Kim Kardashian wooing East Coast rapper Kanye West to L.A. for an explosive super-coupling not seen since Beyonce and Jay-Z first hid their love, they're buying a house from another celebrity crush. The $11 million, 10,000-square-foot Bel Air abode (with plenty of room in the ... More >>

Ten Rap Songs More Republican Than Nicki Minaj

Earlier this week Nicki Minaj stepped in a fresh pile of political shit when she, in an attempt to stir the pot on a "Mercy" freestyle remix, rapped that she is voting for Mitt Romney. People stupid enough to think anything Minaj does or says matters were outraged, and some even sent her death threa ... More >>

Top 10 Sexiest Hip-Hop Video Vixens

LMFAO 'Bikini Girl' Says She Was Fired For Being 'Big Boned' Top Ten Sexiest Album Covers We've Ever Seen Top 60 Worst Lil Wayne Lines on Tha Carter IV Top Ten Rap Albums For People Who Don't Know Shit About Hip-Hop Top 20 Greatest L.A. Rap Albums Of All Time: The Complete List Thoughts From A Rando ... More >>

A-Trak: The Hipster's Hipster

A-Trak will have you know that he isn't just a DJ -- he's a turntablist. Raised in Montreal and now based in New York, he was just 15 when he won the DMC World Championship, the prestigious DJ battle competition. Now 30 and half of the dance production duo Duck Sauce, he's scored a pair of ubiqui ... More >>

Is Syl Johnson Rich Off of Rap Samples? He Says So

The Grammy-nominated soul singer Syl Johnson is currently suing Jay-Z and Kanye West for an alleged illegal sample of his song "Different Strokes" on the Watch The Throne album track "The Joy." (No, not the theme song from the television show starring Gary Coleman.) If successful, it won't be the f ... More >>

"Niggas in Paris," Clean or Uncensored: Which Does My Kids More Injustice?

See also: *"Niggas in Paris": Jay-Z and Kanye Will Perform It 13 Times When They're Here. Seriously. *There's a 5-Year-Old Girl Who Looks Like Adele on My Sons' YMCA Basketball Team. I Hate Her The conversation eventually became about music, and maybe that was the intended point anyway, but it sta ... More >>

Blue Ivy Carter: Top Five Worst Examples of Rap Nepotism

Barely two days after his and Beyonce's baby Blue Ivy Carter was born, Jay-Z put her on a song. "Glory" is a tribute to his new daughter, who closes the track out with a guest feature -- crying. Jay-Z may be starting his kid off young, but nepotism is standard practice among rap superstars. There' ... More >>

Music Picks: Iggy & the Stooges, Morrissey, Esa-Pekka Salonen

Also, Henry Rollins, Liz Pappademas, Greg Bissonette Quintet

The Hip-Hop World's Bizarre Co-Sign Of Justin Bieber

Hip-hop fanatic Justin Bieber​See also: What Will Be The Most Popular Music-Related Halloween Costumes This Year? And How Can They Be Made Slutty? Rivaling his teenie fans' feelings for him, Justin Bieber has a big case of hip-hop fever. Despite being known for unabashedly poppy tunes, the Bi ... More >>

Kanye West - Call of Duty XP 2011 in Playa Vista - September 3, 2011

Lina Lecaro Kanye West​Kanye West Call of Duty XP 2011 event in Playa Vista September 3, 2011 Held Friday and Saturday at the Hercules Campus in Playa Vista (where the Spruce Goose was built), Call of Duty XP 2011 was a two day convention centered around the titular military-themed video game ... More >>

Thurz on Reinventing Himself, U-N-I's Break-Up, and Why West Coast Hip Hop Hasn't Gone Mainstream (Yet)

Thurz​In "Los Angeles," the first single from Inglewood rapper Thurz's debut solo project, L.A. Riot-- out yesterday --a girl chirps, "To me, L.A. means home, sunny skies, and happy people." But in Thurz's next verse, he flips the city over to examine its underbelly, "Cats would raise a gun b ... More >>

Top 7 Hall & Oates-Sampled Hip-Hop Songs

We can go for that!​By Sheila Dichoso Nothing says hip-hop like Hall & Oates. That's right. Not even the filthy mouths of 2 Live Crew could resist their soft rock hooks, luxurious hair and awkward, ambiguous lyrics. (You can't go for what, exactly?) From Wu Tang to Kanye, rappers have paid ... More >>

Kid Cudi brings The Cud Life to Nokia Theater, Britney Fans Swarm Next Door at Staples

photo by Wendy GilmartinKid Cudi​ L.A. Live played host to a hip hop-meets-dance pop mash-up Monday night, with Britney Spears on one side of the street and Kid Cudi on the other.

Day 3: Coachella's GOODs, BADs and UGLYs (feat. Kanye West, Duran Duran, PJ Harvey and the Hilton Sisters)

Timothy Norris​ We came, we saw, we sweated off four pounds of water. Kudos to the Coachella organizers for turning the Empire Polo Grounds into a people-organizing machine. Lines were long, but everything kept moving. Let's look at Sunday's GOODs, BADs and UGLYs...

Coachella 2011: Top Ten Pick-Up Lines (So Far)

By Daniel HernandezThe Line Worked!​ Yeah right, everyone goes to Coachella for the music. Who's kidding? Inevitable hook-ups are a major bonus and with all the skin, sweat, heat and booze, its hard to resist waltzing right up to that smoldering dude or delicious lady and laying it all on th ... More >>

What to Eat in the Desert: The Coachella 2011 Food List

​ Coachella 2011 starts tomorrow, so if you, along with a disproportionate number of other people in this town, are currently packing your car with permissible gear (no weapons, no drugs, no flags, no outside food, no stuffed animals) and all your Kanye and Arcade Fire and Interpol t-shirts, y ... More >>

Top Ten Musician Restaurant Franchises (In Honor of Flavor Flav's New Fried Chicken Joint in Iowa--Yes, Iowa)

Don't Believe the Hype! 10 Musician's Restaurants Less Strange Than Flava Flav's Chicken Joint

Coachella Lineup Announced: We Told You Odd Future Was in There!

​This is the official press release: Coachella 2011. Music. Art. Culture. Community. With the Coachella line-up announcement serving as the official kick-off to the annual U.S. festival season, festival organizers Goldenvoice can now reveal details for the 2011 Coachella Valley Music & Art ... More >>

Top Ten LA Musician Mansions For Sale (Sorry Millionaires: Jack Black Just Snapped Flea's Los Feliz Pad)

Jack Black Buys Flea's House More Musicians Insane Mansions For Sale

Holy Sh*t! Top 10 Uses of Profanity in Music in 2010

​Cuss words can be a lazy lyricist's exclamation points but, in the right hands, profanity affords a landscape of creativity and rhyme schemes that breathe new life into descriptions of coitus, anger, and self-reflection. There may not be enough amazing uses of "fuck," "ass," and "shit" in roc ... More >>

THEY WRITE ABOUT THE SONGS

Best Kanye West Remix for People Who Can't Stand Kanye West (Listen)

​A lot of people love Kanye West. A whole bunch of other people, however, think he's a fine musician but a kind-of-obnoxious person and wish he would reverse the ratio between his mouthing off and his having quiet time. LA Remixers Them Jeans have come to the rescue, with a fantastic remix of ... More >>

Across the Universe: Scribble Pubes, Uke Fail, & Jerky Dress

Across the Universe: Scribble Pubes, Uke Fail, & Jerky Dress

Across the Universe: Lil Wayne Plays Uno, Weezer to Play 'Blue Album,' 'Pinkerton,' Faith Evans Arrested

Across the Universe: Lil Wayne Plays Uno, Weezer to Play 'Blue Album,' 'Pinkerton,' Faith Evans Arrested

Across the Universe: Lady Gaga's Lolla Nip Slip, Kanye West's 'Moving Painting,' Iron Maiden Tumbles

Across the Universe: Lady Gaga's Lolla Nip Slip, Kanye West's 'Moving Painting,' Iron Maiden Tumbles

ODB Lives!: N.A.S.A. Releases New Video for Ol' Dirty Bastard, Karen O, and Fatlip Track

N.A.S.A. Releases New Video for Ol' Dirty Bastard, Karen O, and Fatlip Track

Nightranger: We Wear It Well

10 Hip Hop Highlights of 2009, from Doom to Raekwon to Antipop and Beyond

Top of the Hip-Hop Or, how Dan LeRoy learned to stop worrying and love da bomb.   While year-end, catch-all wrap-ups are common to every musical genre, in no other style of music do they turn into the hand-wringing, "state of the game" examinations that hip-hop seems to provoke. (I've certainly wr ... More >>

Top 10 Dance Albums: Club-land Crossover

In 2009, the mainstream flocked to dance-floor grooves

Kanye Who? VMA Moments That Didn't Suck

Kanye West interrupts Taylor Swift, continuing a long tradition of unspontaneous VMA quackery. Back in the day, VMA's didn't suck, here's evidence.

Busdriver: Crushed Groove

"Your least favorite rapper/With a haircut like a pineapple/Wearing khakis torn/With a voice like a high soprano."

Air Yeezy, Ground Hard: First in Line for Kanye West x Nike Sneaks Offered $950 for His Air Yeezys

Hardcore sneaker fans have camped out since Monday

Inauguration Day Extravaganza: The First Hip-Hop President?

Image via Hip Hop is Read Unless you've been living in the Madagascan Rain Forest or are a cave-dwelling ignicolist in Outer Mongolia, you're well aware that today marks the inauguration of Barack Obama. To the delight of the rap world and the chagrin of the social security set, Obama has been bi ... More >>

The 50 Best Albums of the Year (#10-1) (Sponsored By My Secret Identity )

And people acted surprised when Jerry O' Connell landed Rebecca Romjin. 10. Why? Alopecia (Anticon) It's tough to write about Why?'s breakout record without anxiously jotting down a few choice lyrics from songwriter Yoni Wolf's notebook. Not to downplay its musicianship, but Alopecia is forem ... More >>

The B-Sides: Bishop Lamont Interview

Q: What was it like for you growing up in Los Angeles during the 80s? A: It was the LA of the Reagan administration. Drugs were really heavy in the streets at that time…more crack addicts…crack babies. It was a good time simultaneously because there was more creativity within the music and it ... More >>

The Dull Competence of T.I.'s "Swagger Like Us"

I like "Swagger Like Us." Sort of. Its goals are minimal: Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, T.I. and Kanye trade bars about their mutual awesomeness over a sampled hook courtesy of M.I.A's "Paper Planes." The sort of manufactured "posse cut" that's been in vogue for the past few years, with little connection betw ... More >>

Wale Realizes the Full Potential of the Mixtape

Last November, Zeus wrote a post dissecting the differences between albums and mixtapes for the benefit of crits and fans who had been mistakenly conflating Pusha-T rhyming over old G-Unit beats for high art. It happens. The post may have been a tad heavy-handed, but its point was salient. More of ... More >>

Rock Picks: Lucinda Williams, Fuck Buttons, The Sword

Also, Kanye West, The Black Heart Procession and more

Wale ft. Bun B & Pusha-T: "Back in the Go-Go"

With a spot on Entertainment Weekly's "8 to Watch in 08" and Ann Powers' SXSW rave in the LA Times, the Wale hype is getting pretty loud, yet it exists for good reason. After all, how many young guns can go toe-to-toe with Bun B and Pusha-T? Not to say he's quite there yet. From this angle, Bun-B ... More >>

Survival of the Fiercest

Natural History music; art vandals; bashes worth crashing

The 25 Best Hip-Hop Songs of 2007 (#25-20)

25. Chamillionaire ft. Slick Rick: "Hip Hop Police" Chamillionaire's a good rapper. His flow kind of reminds me of Krayzie Bone had he grown up chugging syrup through humid Houston summers. And unlike a lot of his Southern brethren, Chamillionaire has interesting ideas, even if he doesn't always ... More >>

Daliwood

And anarchy on Sunset

Paper Dolls

The high road and the low road

Buy It, Use It, Break It, Fix It

On the eve of its final American performance of 2007, Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter discusses the duo's banner year, the future of the music industry and the current state of electronic music.

The Great Rap Swindle

Yeah, Kanye West keeps it real. First his Bush comments on the Katrina telethon, then his stance on the MTV/Britney debacle. (One word: “exploitation.”) He was also the first to admit the whole 50 Cent beef was a stunt to sell records. (And by the way, why did so many new records come out on ... More >>

Jon Brion's Amazing Musicquarium

The Nowhere/Everywhere man on Kanye West, Fiona Apple, Frank Sinatra, quantum physics, Roxy Music, acoustic alchemy, God and extreme coffee drinking

Puttin' the Hella in Coachella

A festivalgoer’s diary

Free the Peoples!

On 20/20, Dilated Peoples saygoodbye to Kanye, return to basics. Indie snobs approve

2005 in Words