Music News: Kanye West Reveals Album Title Plus Features M.I.A. ~ La Roux & Alicia Keys Amongst Others On The Album!

Kanye West announced the official album title on Tuesday morning (October 5) via his Twitter.  The name has been floating around for some time in various rumor reports and blog postings, but in the shorter iteration of ‘Dark Twisted Fantasy’.

“The first song on the album is called “Dark Fantasy” produced by the RZA, co-produced by me and No I.D.” West added. “I ain’t letting no leaks have any [effect] on my song choices… “All of the Lights” is the next single, but wait till y’all hear the final!”

On Monday, West also confirmed the album’s release date, November 22. The project will arrive a day before Nicki Minaj‘s debut, ‘Pink Friday,’ and a number of other albums getting a jumpstart on the holiday shopping season.

The first two singles from ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ have already been released, “Power” and “Runaway,” featuring Pusha T.

Another track scheduled to appear on the project, “Lost in the World,” leaked online last week, leading West to announce he was canceling his weekly free “G.O.O.D. Fridays” music offering. But by Friday night, he recanted and delivered the sartorial “Christian Dior Denim Flow,” featuring John Legend, Kid Cudi, Pusha T, Lloyd Banks and Ryan Leslie.

On Tuesday, West also assured fans of the G.O.O.D offerings that some of those songs would be included on the album too.

In other news….

Kanye West’s ‘Runaway’ London Screening Was A ‘Mad Event’

After showing ‘surreal’ film, West stuck around for two hours of Q&A, MTV UK reporter says. Kanye West invited a very select group of about 100 journalists and bloggers to the Wednesday-night London screening of his 35-minute art film for the song “Runaway.” Among them was MTV UK reporter Tom Thorogood, who got on the phone on Thursday morning (October 7) to talk about the typically over-the-top audience with the Louis Vuitton Don.

“It was a mad event,” Thorogood said of the screening, which included a rambling two-hour Q&A session during which West took any and all questions about the film and his upcoming albums. “Halfway through, an American guy from his label asked for one last question and just as the person asked it, Kanye said, ‘Why is this the last question?’ and said he was happy to talk as long as people wanted him to.”

Thorogood said there are perhaps only two dozen words spoken in the “ambitious … great looking” 35-minute art movie, whose narrative he described as “very loose and abstract.” If anything, he suspected it could be chopped up into five separate mind-bending music videos, though it only uses heavily altered snippets of West‘s music that are quite different from the versions of such songs as “Monster,” “Runaway” and the Bon Iver-sampling “Lost in the World” that fans have heard so far.

“It opens with shots of Kanye in a sports car and slow motion shots of deer and then you see a huge explosion and you see he’s crashed into the Phoenix,” said Thorogood of the other star of the film, model Selita Ebanks, who plays the Phoenix and who has been seen on ‘Ye’s arm at events lately. “He picks her up in his arms and walks away from the car which explodes behind him.” The title of the film then flashes on the screen and the first voice you hear is a snippet of Nicki Minaj‘s English-accented rhyme from “Monster.”

In another scene, Thorogood said you hear a brief bit of “Power,” which Kanye taps out on the same kind of MPC drum machine he played on both the VMAs and on “Saturday Night Live.” The three- to four-minute bit features Ebanks silently dancing around West as the song plays. “It was quite clear that [the movie is about] what he said about this before being about his story … a representation of his career,” Thorogood said.

And in a setup cued to the new song “Lights” that is likely to be the most iconic of the film, Thorogood said Kanye (a.k.a. “Griffin”) and the Phoenix watch as a marching band stomps across the screen carrying a giant, somewhat flimsy-looking papier-mâché model of Michael Jackson‘s head.

“With the passing of Michael Jackson, I feel a responsibility to bring things to our generation that can inspire and bring real culture to pop culture,” West told the audience in London about the film shot over four grueling days in Prague last month. “I want to use my power in a proper way.”

In another pivotal scene, West and the Phoenix arrive for a formal dinner at a huge table and are given weird looks by their fellow diners, one of whom asks, “Why didn’t you leave the monkey in the zoo?”

Thorogood said the film had French subtitles for the sparse dialogue, which were likely a holdover from Tuesday night’s screening in Paris, since West said the version he showed in London was still a rough cut. Among the other new songs featured in the movie is one called “Blame Game,” which contains a healthy sample of the melancholy piano groove in cult electronic musician Aphex Twin‘s 2001 song “Avril 14th,” as well as vocals from frequent ‘Ye collaborator John Legend, which the rapper said may or may not make the final cut of the album.

West introduced the film to his London audience by saying, ” ‘Purple Rain,’ [Pink Floyd’s] ‘The Wall,’ Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ — I wanted to do a modern version of that.” He also said that about “90 percent” of the music featured in the film appears on his upcoming fifth album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, due out on November 22.

Plus….

Kanye West Adds M.I.A., La Roux And Alicia Keys To Album, ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,’ which might also feature Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, Mos Def and Santigold.

It was the court of the Crimson King (remember the red suit at the VMAs?) on Wednesday in London as Kanye West spoke to a select group of journalists and bloggers about his upcoming “Runaway” mini-movie and accompanying album, ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,’ due out November 22.

In addition to screening the nearly wordless, trippy fantasia on the high prices of fame and individuality, ‘Ye also dropped some information on a number of the collaborators he’s got lined up for the album. According to our colleague Tom Thorogood of MTV UK, during a rambling two-hour Q&A session, West mentioned that he’s been in the studio with everyone from Alicia Keys to M.I.A., Kid Cudi, Mos Def and Santigold working on tracks for Fantasy.

He also confirmed that Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon is “all over” the album, a fact we already learned when a demo of “Lost in the World” recently leaked, which features re-recorded vocals from the BI track “Woods.” The pair reportedly recorded at least nine tracks together, and West has said Vernon is slated to appear on multiple songs.

Among the other new tracks featured in the movie is “Blame Game,” which contains a healthy sample of the melancholy piano groove in cult electronic musician Aphex Twin’s 2001 song “Avril 14th,” as well as vocals from frequent ‘Ye collaborator John Legend, which may or may not make the album’s final cut. Other collaborators who’ve dropped in on sessions include Wu-Tang mastermind RZA and hip-hop icon Pete Rock.

The spate of collaborations is no surprise, considering West has already dropped a number of singles packed with bold-faced names as part of his “G.O.O.D. Friday” series, including “So Appalled” (RZA, Jay-Z, Pusha T, Swizz Beatz, CyHi Da Prynce), “Lord Lord Lord” (Mos Def, Swizz Beatz, Raekwon, Charlie Wilson) and “Monster” (Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Bon Iver, Nicki Minaj).

NME also reports that West said the album could feature vocals from La Roux‘s flame-haired frontwoman, Elly Jackson, as well as Chicago hip-hop don producer No ID.

‘Ye also said he’s traveling back to France soon — he debuted the film there Tuesday — to finish work on his mini-album with Jay-Z, ‘Watch the Throne’.

And, in typically epic Kanye fashion, the Chicago MC said he’s planning a spectacular live show for the “Fantasy tour”, which he wants to wind up in front of the Egyptian pyramids. Unfortunately, he told the crowd, they’re not available until April.

Which Kanye collabo are you most excited about?

Listen to Kanye West ft. Drake – “All Of The Lights (Ghetto University)” below….

Source: MTV News

Hip-Hop News: Ghostface Killah “The Wizard of Poetry”

Ghostface Killah said hello to the world with the very first verse on the very first Wu-Tang album, became a god to rap nerds with Supreme Clientele, and reached an all-time critical peak with the dope-dealing sagas on 2006’s Fishscale. Next up is a bit of a curveball — September’s “The Wizard of Poetry” will be an R&B-heavy affair, featuring collaborations with the likes of Raheem DeVaughn, Estelle, and John Legend. Ahead of his show at the Nokia Theatre on 7/30/2009, Ghost chatted with Vulture about mellowing out, rapping at 70, and the appropriate way to sing about crack-slinging on an R&B album.

What does the title The Wizard of Poetry mean to you?
It was a title I had since I did the Pretty Toney album, and I just wanted to do something that had meaning with it. I wanted to base it around The Wizard of Oz. I was passing the chuckle patches and all that stuff like that, doing everything till I got to the Emerald City, and meeting the person that was like God, you know what I mean? That’s what I was gonna do: fall asleep where the chuckle patches was at, under a tree or something, and here go these skits, and they laughing and all this shit. I could have been dreaming, or whatever the case may be. But things had to change, ’cause I couldn’t take the same likeness of that movie and put it on my album ’cause then it’s gonna cause a problem. But I still kept the Wizard of Poetry and Emerald City.

Did you know that The Wizard of Poetry would be an R&B album when you first thought up the title?
No, no, no. When I first thought Wizard of Poetry, I just thought, I’m just gonna write a bunch of ill stories however I wrote it. But it would just be poetry — you know, ill, ill shit. But I always wanted to do an R&B album, and that’s how it came in.

Was anyone in your camp trying to dissuade you from doing that?
No, not really. I was gonna do it anyway. But there wasn’t nobody, like, saying, nah. My manager was like, “Do half and half”; this and that; “You’ll lose your fan base.” I’m not into it for my fan base right now. I did that for my fan base for like a bunch of my albums. I gotta do what I want to do for myself right now. What’s gonna make me happy.

You’ve also said part of doing an R&B album is that, as you get older, you can’t rap about the same type of stuff you used to.
Yeah, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still will do that on other tracks, but this album right here is an R&B album. You can’t talk about slinging crack on an R&B album. Unless you get caught — it depends on how you say it — and your girl is gonna leave you, and she never came back, cause you were doing whatever you were doing.

But in general, is getting old in hip-hop something that worries you?
I’ma definitely be old in hip-hop. I’m not gonna be on the road. But this is a mental thing. You can write music till you 70. This is a hobby. B., muthafuckas always act like they retiring and don’t go nowhere. You know what it is, man. You can’t get away from it, B. You don’t think Michael Jordan wants to pick up the ball sometimes? But that’s what it is. That’s why a boxer always keep coming back, like Muhammad Ali, until he just kept getting his ass beat. Until you realize, I just ain’t got it no more.

Do you worry about that happening to you?
I mean, yeah, you always worry about it. But that’s what makes you great. It keeps you on your toes. The muthafucka that thinks that he’s not falling off, his darts start coming more weaker. Once you worry about it, and hope that this don’t happen, then you’re guaranteed to be around for a long time. ‘Cause you’re always trying to be on point.

You also mentioned that the album was partially motivated by the fact that you haven’t shot anyone since the nineties. No need to get into too much detail, but can you talk about that particular incident?
Oh, nah, I ain’t talking about that, B. This nigga wanna talk about a shooting I said in the early nineties. What’s wrong with this nigga? [Laughs] Nah, nigga. You wilin’ and shit. Nah, nah.

Okay, moving on. This is your last album on Def Jam — are you already looking toward the next step in your career?
I don’t know. The way the game is right now, even going independent is still fucking everything up. Everything is just fucked up in the game. So I don’t know what to really do. I just know to do my work, and that’s it.

Is the joint album with DOOM next?
I’m waiting for DOOM to get back at me so we can fix it up. I gave him all my parts. I’m just waiting for him to fix it all up.

How do you manage to stay consistent, when so many of your peers take so long between albums?
That’s just working. My shit is, at least try to drop an album once a year. Or, if not, within a year and a half. And that’s it. As far as putting music out, my shit is, once you’re gone for two and three years, then you seem to lose the people. It’s like you selling crack or weed on the block, and you fuck around. They used to copping from you, but then you leave. Even if you left for a fucking a day, they gonna go to somebody else. They still gonna be checking for you, but they gonna go to somebody else. And once they get used to going to somebody else to get their weed — and it might be better than yours or just as good — they not gonna need you no more. ‘Cause they gonna go see the other person they made a bond with.

Definitely. What’s your schedule like when you’re in the studio?
My hours is anytime, B. When you got rap music, you could work right now till six o’clock in the morning. You got your own hours. And a lot of hours is late-night hours. A little bit of daytime, then you go back at night, and you catch what you can catch — get up in the morning, listen to what you were writing. “Oh shit, I wrote that?” Then connect a couple of lines on that, and that’s how it goes. Just connect the lines, and before you know it, you got like, six, seven songs, son. And it’s like, oh shit. It makes you want to keep on going.

You still write with pen and paper?
Yeah, of course. Definitely. I wish I could do the other way, but I can’t do that shit. But that don’t mean nothing. Muthafuckas act like they don’t write, they ain’t making no real hits.

You’re one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary rappers. Do you read your reviews?
I don’t really read it a lot and stuff like that, dog. I go by what people tell me. I just take it how it is. But I didn’t really get a chance to really show to my best ability. I haven’t really went in in a long, long, long time; I think that my future is gonna tell where my hand is at, you understand what I’m saying? Within the next couple of years, it’s gonna tell where I really stand. Right now I made a name for myself, but the future is gonna be the good days.

Source: Vulture via NY Magazine

“Your thoughts?

Music In Ya Ear: Raekwon Feat. Ghostface Killah “Criminology 2″

Proves He Was Really Only Built for Cuban Linx…

Living larger than ever. Yes, “Criminology 2” is a sequel to “Criminology,” from Raekwon‘s classic 1995 debut Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, and will appear on the long-awaited Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II. But is Rae doing it “‘09 style,” as he claims? Well, the new track uses the same beat, same guest star (Ghostface Killah, naturally), and another sample from the same movie (Scarface, naturally). But, given the face-melting perfection of his debut — and the slipshod quality of much recent Wu-Tang output — we believe the Chef is right to stick to the old recipes.

So, please: Kick it old-school.

Download “Criminology 2”: Here.

Source: prefixmag.com
Photo: Getty Images