Kanye West
34 articles
List of articles in the library
Kanye West: The College Dropout (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam) ****
Review by Angus Batey, MOJO, May 2004
Super-producer takes up the mike for his "solo" debut. ...
Live Review by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 20 May 2004
A PROTEGE OF Jay-Z and Damon Dash, Kanye West is not one to hide his light under a bushel. ...
Kanye West: "Arrogant? Not me. I just knew I was going to win…"
Report and Interview by Chris Campion, Telegraph Magazine, 11 September 2004
OHIO STATE University is marching to the beat of a college dropout. Not just any college dropout mind, but rapper and producer Kanye West, who ...
Interview by Amy Linden, Complex, Summer 2004
WHEN KANYE WEST'S much-anticipated debut The College Dropout hit stores in early February, its blend of inventive production – via a by-now trademark predilection for ...
Street Smarts: Kanye West: Late Registration (Roc-A-Fella) ****
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, August 2005
Second enthralling album from hip hop's new multi-faceted main man ...
Natural Born Show-off: Kanye West
Report and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 5 August 2005
PRESS PLAYBACKS tend to be uncomfortable affairs. A record label, eager to unveil its latest prestige release but terrified of a stray copy leaking on ...
Comment by Mark Anthony Neal, PopMatters, 1 February 2006
By making public his struggles with living a devout life, Kanye West makes such a lifestyle so much more accessible and valuable to the very ...
Live Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, PopMatters, 19 March 2006
College Dropout Studies Abroad ...
Kanye West: Late Orchestration (Mercury/Def Jam) ***
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 2006
Superstar rapper reinvents his sound at intimate London show ...
Kanye West: Corn Exchange, Edinburgh
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 20 August 2007
HE MAY be a royally approved rapper after his appearance at the Diana memorial concert, but Kanye West recently took issue with Princes William and ...
Kanye West: Graduation (Def Jam/Mercury) ****
Review by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 7 September 2007
WHATEVER YOU THINK of Kanye West — genius, prat, prattish genius — chances are he has thought it first. ...
Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 9 September 2007
THE MEDIA joust in America pitting Kanye West against 50 Cent – both releasing albums on the same day – is reminiscent of the 1995 ...
Report by John Doran, The Quietus, 24 June 2008
Quietus Editor John Doran gets drunk, falls over, destroys phone, makes noise like "broken panther" and has Proustian recall of two run ins with rap ...
Kanye West: 808s & Heartbreak (Roc-A-Fella) ****
Review by Angus Batey, MOJO, November 2008
NB This record wasn't made available to reviewers properly, due partly to Kanye still working on it at the time MOJO went to press. As ...
Review by Dan Gennoe, dotmusic.co.uk, 24 November 2008
AROUND THE RELEASE of last album, 2007's Graduation, something changed with Kanye West. The most infectious and commercially astute voice in hip hop added to ...
Review by Dorian Lynskey, Q, January 2009
AT THE END of August, Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis was waiting for her flight to the Democratic National Convention in Denver when a fellow passenger ...
Profile by Stephen Dalton, The National, September 2009
WHEN PRESIDENT OBAMA branded rapper Kanye West a "jackass" for his one-man stage invasion at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York last Sunday, ...
Kanye West : My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Review by Ian Gittins, Virgin Media Music, November 2010
AFTER THE disappointing reviews and sales of his autotune-laden 2008 album 808s & Heartbreak, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a magnificent return to form ...
Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Def Jam) *****
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 November 2010
RECORDED IN HAWAII at a rumoured cost of some $3 million, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of pop's gaudiest, most grandiose efforts of ...
Kanye West and Jay-Z: Watch The Throne
Review by Iman Lababedi, RockNYC, 10 August 2011
THIS ISN'T AS crappy as I expected, not the disaster 'H.A.M.' and 'Otis' promised us. Better than Jay-Z's BP3, not as good as Fantasy or, ...
Will Bon Iver Be The Arcade Fire Of 2012? And Other Pre-Grammy Nomination Show Questions
Report by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 30 November 2011
TONIGHT'S GRAMMY nomination concert, airing at 10 p.m. on CBS, will not only jam-pack a bunch of performances by the likes of Lady Gaga and ...
Jay-Z and Kanye West: O2 Arena, London
Live Review by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 20 May 2012
JAY-Z AND Kanye West are hip-hop's current two main players, and they are pathologically keen to celebrate the fact. ...
12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief: Madison Square Garden, New York
Live Review by Alan Light, MSN.com, December 2012
IT MIGHT HAVE been the single greatest gathering of talent for a rock show – or it might just have been, as Mick Jagger put ...
Game Of Thrones: Kanye West: Yeezus (Def Jam) ****/Jay Z: Magna Carta… Holy Grail (Virgin EMI) **
Review by Dorian Lynskey, Q, September 2013
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN the world's two most famous rappers start to lose their grip on the mic? ...
A Triumph of Kanye West's will
Live Review by David Bennun, Intelligent Life, 28 June 2015
"RAP IS THE new rock'n'roll. We the rock stars. And I'm the biggest of all of them." ...
Kanye West: The Life Of Pablo (GOOD Music/Def Jam)
Review by Simon Reynolds, The Wire, April 2016
The seventh album by Kanye West dismantles the traditional concept of the album while laying bare its author's inner conflicts. ...
Live Review by Maura Johnston, The Boston Globe, 4 September 2016
"IT'S A GOOD YEAR to be a Kanye West fan," Kanye West said near the end of his show at TD Garden on Saturday night. ...
Richard Russell: Rich Pickings
Interview by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, March 2018
As Richard Russell's collaborative album, Everything Is Recorded, is released, RC's Jamie Atkins meets him to talk about the recording and the music that led ...
How Auto-Tune Revolutionized the Sound of Popular Music
Essay by Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork, 17 September 2018
An in-depth history of the most important pop innovation of the last 20 years, from Cher's 'Believe' to Kanye West to Migos ...
Inside the mind of Kanye West: Searching for... Kanye (BBC Three)
Preview by Patrick Clarke, bbc.co.uk, 14 December 2018
The rapper has hit the headlines almost as much for his mental health as his music this year, but what's really going on? ...
Kim and Kanye divorce poised to be glitzy, messy and very public
Comment by Edward Helmore, The Observer, 12 February 2022
Epic split between Kim Kardashian and rapper now known as Ye, with wealth, parenting disputes and trolling is perfect divorce for the Instagram Age ...
Consequence shares new Kanye West-produced single 'Blood Stain'
Report by Patrick Clarke, New Musical Express, 10 June 2022
Consequence calls it "beat of the year" ...
Retrospective by Iman Lababedi, RockNYC, 20 April 2023
BETWEEN THE TRAGIC murder of Biggie Smalls in 1997 and Jay-Z's temporary retirement in 2003, he and his producer Kanye West dominated the rap scene. ...
The Greatest Pop Star by Decade!
Comment by Iman Lababedi, RockNYC, 18 May 2023
PLEASE NOTE THAT I said popstar and not musician, so no Irving Berlin or George Gershwin… ...
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