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(I've seen the term floating around for a bit, so I figured I'd write up a quick summary. My apologies if its too dumbed down; just trying not to leave anyone behind! Please note, most links NSFW due to language.) Hashtag rap, previously also known as yoda raps (noun, not verb), was officially coined by Kanye West on Funkmaster Flex's HOT97 radio show on November 2. The term--a nod to the way online posts are tagged (especially on Twitter, which Mr. West is a noted user of) using hash symbols in order to categorize the post's content--refers to the recent rise in rap lines which drop the usage of "like" and "as", and instead substituting those words with a pregnant pause (which is sometimes dispensed with), thus truncating what is normally a simile or metaphor into a sort of short setup followed by a (hopefully) funny punchline. [more inside]
posted by jng on Dec 24, 2010 - 40 comments

"Nobody else is making music this daring and weird." Kanye West's upcoming new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, samples everyone from Bon Iver to Smokey Robinson and features guests like Elton John and La Roux. You may have already heard the album's first single "Power" (previously) or second single "Runaway" with its accompanying 35-minute short film, via his G.O.O.D. Fridays music project. Or maybe you've recently seen him rapping on a Delta flight, performing at Twitter HQ, or apologizing for some of his "most ridiculous on-air moments." Did I mention the banned album cover?
posted by Soup on Nov 19, 2010 - 165 comments

Re-introducing the work of George Condo. "George Condo is a man possessed by visions. A successful Soho artist, he paints what he sees: the "antipodal beings" that dominate his imagination ... They look like nothing so much as muppets or troll dolls as painted by Walter Keane." Featured recently at the Whitney Museum, Condo's work is finding a new audience as the cover art for Kanye West's latest single, "Power." [more inside]
posted by grabbingsand on Jun 22, 2010 - 4 comments

The Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab is an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media. You may know them from such projects as How to build a fake Google Street View car, public domain donor stickers, internet famous class, the first rap video to end with a download source code link, or their numerous firefox add-ons (such as China Channel, Tourettes Machine, or Back to the future). FAT members have been hard at work standardizing various open source graffiti-related software packages, including Graffiti Analysis, Laser Tag, Fat Tag Deluxe and EyeWriter [previously] to be GML (Graffiti Markup Language) compliant. Fuck Google. Fuck Twitter. FuckFlickr. Fuck SXSW. Fuck 3D. FAT Lab is Kanye shades for the open source movement.
posted by finite on Mar 13, 2010 - 8 comments

Why hip-hop sucks in 2009. by Dr. Lawyer Indian Chief of FreeDarko [more inside]
posted by AceRock on Jul 21, 2009 - 113 comments

Julia Nunes can sing. And she plays ukulele. But what won me over: her charming, silly demeanor. She videoed herself playing Queen, Kanye, Destiny's Child, Bright Eyes and others and posted it to YouTube. Now she's got an album (eMusic) and is playing Bonnaroo.
posted by eustacescrubb on Jun 7, 2009 - 46 comments

A few months ago I heard a song from the Côte d’Ivoire. Twelve minutes long, Champion DJ’s ‘Baako’ is built around a baby crying through Auto-Tune. The software bends the baby’s anguish into eerie musicality. The ear likes it. The mind isn’t so sure. ‘Baako’ is disturbing. The aestheticized cry no longer corresponds to any normal emotion. Before Auto-Tune, we had no melodious screams. dj/Rupture writes an essay about auto-tune.
posted by geos on May 2, 2009 - 49 comments

Current.com's Daily Fix has named their Top 5 Free MixTapes of 2008. At number five is Black Milk's Elec. Number four is Wale's mixtape about Seinfeld (seriously). Number three is The Hood Internet vs. Chicago. Number two is Charles Hamilton's Crash Landed. Number one is a tie between Lil Wayne's The Draught is Over Part Six and some Kanye remixes called Sky High. Bonus mixtape not from the list: Jaydiohead - JayZ and Radiohead... in the same songs... I like 'em all
posted by pwally on Jan 13, 2009 - 12 comments

The Kanye West Beat Drop. A number of the web's best rap blogs get together to post and chronicle the best of Mr. West's impressive and extensive history of producing, ghost producing, and the stories around many of the songs. [more inside]
posted by cashman on Jun 15, 2008 - 25 comments

Artist Dan Bergeron likes to muck around with billboard adverts. His recent doctoring of a billboard featuring Bush in Toronto has earned him some press in the Globe and Mail.
posted by chunking express on Aug 11, 2006 - 43 comments

"Heard 'Em Say" is Kanye West's latest video, animated by the legendary Bill Plympton.
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Dec 1, 2005 - 87 comments

George Bush Doesn't Care about Black People: The Remix? Kanye West's anti-Bush ad lib on a telethon for the victims of Hurricane Katrina has already attracted considerable controversy, but now Legendary K.O. of the Houston rap group, the K-Otix, has decided to immortalize Kanye West's soundbite by incorporating it into a mash-up with Kanye's song Golddigger. The K-Otix rewrote Golddigger's lyrics to serve as an indictment of Bush and his sluggish response to Katrina, while simultaneously promoting Houston Hurricane Aid to help displaced residents of New Orleans. Other rappers including Mos Def have already recorded songs in response to the disaster, while other performers such as Jay-Z and Usher have rallied to Kanye West's defense.
posted by jonp72 on Sep 17, 2005 - 172 comments

Kanye West gets twitchy on Red Cross Benefit Oh goodness. The young prankster in me loves this kind of thing. The boring matured realist version of me finds this divisive bumper-stickerism toxic to our modern political dialogue. And worse still I see the following scenario unfold: Kanye West: "George Bush doesn't care about black people". Cut to: My mother-in-law in front of the tv, slowly putting her checkbook back into her purse.
posted by glenwood on Sep 2, 2005 - 187 comments