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Posts Tagged ‘Kanye West’

You probably don’t think of Kanye West as a generous person, and with good reason. His newest album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, is the sound of a relentless perfectionist realizing something massive, warped, vicious, and all-encompassing, taking only a few seconds to breathe between his bombastic and gaudy orchestral productions. Leading up to the album, he made headlines not so much for the music he’d been making but for all-caps outbursts on his blog and on Twitter and the public equivalent, outbursts like his rant over Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV VMAs.  

Yet Kanye West spent several months before the realization of his Dark Twisted Fantasy releasing free music online through his GOOD Fridays series, offering teaser singles, B-sides, and other material every Friday from August through the end of January (with a few weeks missed following the album’s release). He used the service first to release a remix of the album’s first single, Power, which added new verses from Jay-Z and Swizz Beatz as well as a detour into C&C Music Factory’s “The Power” in its second half, then premiered “Monster,” “So Appalled,” “Devil in a New Dress,” and several other songs that ended up becoming part of the album. 

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Hip-hop heavyweight Kanye West has publically shown his support for president-elect Barack Obama ever since the senator from Illinois announced his decision to run for president earlier this year, and West is nothing but floored coming out of Obama’s victorious campaign this week. Paying tribute to the Obama campaign, West wrote the words “Hi Mom, Obama Won!” on his website’s blog, a touching move from the rapper whose mother Donda passed away less than a year ago after complications with surgery.

Other fervent Obama supporters in the hip-hop community include artists Will.i.am, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Stevie Wonder, Will Smith, Q-Tip, John Legend, Jay-Z, Talib Kweli, Ludacris, Common, Mos Def, Ne-Yo, Nas, Young Jeezy, the Game, Herbie Hancock, Usher and more. Chicago talk show guru Oprah Winfrey has also been a supporting figure in the Obama campaign, and she was in attendance at Grant Park in Chicago Tuesday night as Barack Obama made his historic election speech. Brad Pitt was also in the crowd, and several other public figures celebrated Obama’s victory on television programs, websites and interviews as the presidential election concluded. Kanye West’s declaration on his website was one of many, but the shout-out to his late mother was one of the most memorable notes of Obama excitement.

West, a Chicago, Illinois native, has been incredibly involved in the presidential campaign this year, but before he was dominating the music (and now, political) scene, the fresh rapper was blazing through the Midwest with his hip-hop talent and unrelenting perseverance. West first burst on the music scene in the late ’90s and early ’00s, getting his foot in the door by appearing on Jay-Z’s Blueprint album. West’s 2004 album The College Dropout was the massive success the rapper had been waiting for, and songs like “Jesus Walks” and “Slow Jamz” placed the name Kanye West among the big dogs in the hip-hop industry.

Since 2004, Kanye West has recorded and released several number ones on the Billboard charts ranging from “Gold Digger” and “Good Life” to “Stronger,” also garnering eight Grammy Awards in the wake of his musical peak. The rapper’s confident feel-good anthems have dominated radio waves and television channels for several years now, and he’s been rocking out live performances to everyone with Kanye West tickets just as long. If you haven’t heard West’s live rendition of “Stronger” in concert, discover the Kanye West magic for yourself.

Aside from producing some of the most powerful hip-hop music on the scene these days, West has also become a fearless public icon in the media for anything and everything he believes in. The rapper has been tapped on camera saying that George Bush doesn’t care about black people in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, also depicted as Jesus Christ on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, and now his strong support for president-elect Barack Obama has earned him some time in the spotlight, as well. West is still busy performing and supporting his new album 808s & Heartbreak, and the rapper hasn’t shown any signs of a slowdown.

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