Kanye West

Kanye West’s Latest Performance Was At A Wedding In Venice, Italy

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Guests at a wedding in Venice, Italy over the weekend were treated to an interesting surprise: A performance from none other than Kanye West. The rapper played a few of his hits at the wedding of D’Estree founder Geraldine Guiotte and Tiffany & Co. Vice President Alexander Arnault, wearing an Eyes Wide Shut-esque mask and an all-black Balenciaga ensemble. Videos from the event popped up on Twitter, confirming that the rapper performed renditions of “Believe What I Say” and “Come To Life” from his new album Donda, as well as fan favorites “Flashing Lights” and “Runaway.”

Prior to the wedding, Kanye’s last performance was arguably his stadium listening events for Donda, where he didn’t so much perform as he did play different versions of the album while hanging out with troubled stars like DaBaby and Marilyn Manson (and set himself on fire for the spectacle).

Meanwhile, Kanye’s got a lot on his plate looking forward to the end of the year, as he’s got a Netflix documentary on the way, he’s reportedly producing Ghostface Killah’s Supreme Clientele sequel, he’s launching a “Donda”-branded tech line, and he’s selling his Wyoming ranch. You can watch videos of him performing at the high-fashion wedding above.

JAY-Z Bets On Crypto And The Metaverse Success

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JAY-Z And The Metaverse

JAY-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners venture capital firm (MVP) co-founded by JAY-Z, Rocnation Vice-chairman Jay Brown, and venture capitalist Larry Marcus is investing in Spatial Labs. Spatial labs is a tech incubator that will focus on cryptocurrency and blockchain developments and products. JAY-Z Peeks Into The Future As the music industry takes on the newest trend […]

Young Thug Told Kanye West They Would Not Be On Speaking Terms If He Didn’t Appear On ‘Donda’

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This Friday marks a bit moment for the music world: the release of a new Young Thug album. The Atlanta rapper is gearing up to share P*NK, which fans have spent the better part of two months waiting for after he announced it during an NPR Tiny Desk performance over the summer. Thug sat down with Complex for an interview, where he spoke about Kanye West and how he ended up on his tenth album, Donda.

“I just hit Kanye like, ‘Bro, if I ain’t on the album, we are not speaking,’” he said to Complex’s Erik Skelton. He explained his take on the legendary superstar. “What n****s don’t know about Kanye West is he’s a real n***a,” Thug said. “He’s a billionaire, and all that sh*t is cool, but in real life, he could survive in the trenches. If he go to the trenches, the jungle, he could survive. He a real n***a.”

So far, Thug has only shared one single from the album, namely “Tick Tock.”

You can read the full interview with Complex here.

Young Thug is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

P*NK is out 10/15 via 300 Entertainment/Atlantic Records.

Kanye West Is Moving On From His Famous Wyoming Ranch As He Looks To Sell It

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Wyoming has had a major role in Kanye West’s recent history due to the time he’s spent recording his latest projects there. Now, though, it looks like he’s moving on from his first Wyoming property, Monster Lake Ranch: TMZ and People report that West has listed the property for $11 million, which is $3 million less than he paid when he bought it in September 2019.

A realtor.com listing for the property (which went up 21 hours ago as of this post) notes the lot has 3,888 acres of land in Cody, Wyoming. The listing also notes, “The once in a lifetime property contains a BLM lease, equipment sheds, equine facility, livestock corrals, and hay meadows. The lodge, commercial kitchen, go cart track, and trophy trout fishing bring commercial opportunities. The views of the sandstone cliffs and Absaroka mountains make it a premier Wyoming ranch investment.”

This doesn’t mean West is done with Wyoming, though. Shortly after buying Monster Lake Ranch, in November 2019, he purchased another Wyoming property, Bighorn Mountain Ranch. The 6,713-acre property had a listing price of $14.495 million and is located outside of Greybull, less than 100 miles away from the Cody ranch. At the time, he reportedly also bought a warehouse in Cody.

In 2018, West recorded a handful of projects as part of what became known as the “Wyoming Sessions”: his own Ye, Teyana Taylor‘s KTSE, Pusha T‘s Daytona, Nas’ Nasir, and his and Kid Cudi’s Kids See Ghosts. Later, West’s most recent album, Donda, was partially recorded at Bighorn Mountain Ranch.

Kim Kardashian Joked About Her Divorce From Kanye West In Her ‘SNL’ Monologue

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We’re now into the second week of the 47th season of Saturday Night Live, and for this week’s episode, Kim Kardashian took on the hosting duties while Halsey arrived as the show’s musical guest. Kim, along with the rest of her family, are by far one of the most recognizable names in entertainment as they’ve amassed a huge following through several endeavors in the worlds of business, reality television, and more. Kardashian is no stranger to being on camera, so it’s no surprise that she delivered an entertaining and comical monologue to open the show.

One of the highlights came when she joked about her divorce from Kanye West. “I’ve been very blessed in this life, and I’m grateful for everything, honestly, all the ups, all the downs,” she said. “I mean, I married the best rapper of all time. Not only that, he’s the richest Black man in America, a talented, legit genius, who gave me four incredible kids. So when I divorced him, you have to know it came down to just one thing: his personality.”

She continued, “I know it sounds mean, but people keep telling me that comedy comes from truth. And if there’s one thing that I always strive to be, it’s genuine.”

Kardashian also joked about her family’s failed political campaigns, that being Kanye’s run for president and Caitlyn Jenner’s run for governor of California, as well as being “much more than that reference photo my sisters showed their plastic surgeons.”

You can watch the full monologue in the video above.

Kanye West Finally Has A Diamond-Certified Record Thanks To ‘Stronger’

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Landing a hit record is already hard enough, but a Diamond-certified song is even harder. Luckily for Kanye West, he recently achieved both thanks to one of the most popular songs off his third album Graduation. The Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) announced that the rapper’s 2007 track “Stronger” just became his first Diamond-certified single. What that denotes is that the single sold at least 10 million copies since its release 14 years ago.

Four months after its release, “Stronger” became the rapper’s third No. 1 single when it reached the top of the singles chart at the end of September in 2007. Additionally, the song won a plethora of awards, which includes Best Hip-Hop Video at the 2007 BET Awards, Video Of The Year, Best Director, and Best Editing at the 2007 MTV VMAs, and Best Rap Solo Performance at the 2008 Grammy Awards.

One of the most infamous stories behind “Stronger” is that it was reportedly mixed more than 75 times before and after its release. West worked with eight audio engineers and 11 mix engineers from all over the world on the song, but it wasn’t until he called on Timbaland to re-do the track’s drum programming that he felt satisfied. Still, West later decided the song wasn’t nearly as good as Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” which he sampled for “Stronger.”

Those Anxiety-Causing Voices In ‘The White Lotus’ Theme Song? They Were Originally Meant For Kanye West

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Cristobal Tapia de Veer composed the music for HBO’s Hawaii-set breakout hit The White Lotus, but the anxiety-causing voices were originally meant for Kanye West.

“I went to his place where he works” in California, Tapia de Veer revealed on the Broken Record podcast, “and then I was trying to understand what he wanted.” But because West is “always talking about a million things at the same time,” he didn’t know what he was there for. It had something to do with Nike and a prototype for a new shoe and “how this Nike shoe relates to music,” so Tapia de Veer started to work on something “really striking” on his laptop. He continued:

“I had those voices and I tried to find a way to play melodies that is really striking, and this happened by accident and I was like, at that point I knew that this was like gold. And I was like, ‘OK, this I’m going to show to Kanye.’ I was there for like a week and I had to leave, and there was problems, and Kanye started firing people and his lawyers and everything was too long… It was a mess”

This was, Tapia de Veer notes, a month before all the Trump stuff.

Anyway, West never called Tapia de Veer back, so when The White Lotus came up, he knew “those tribal voices” would be perfect for the show. “So I went back to my system and started finding the right melody,” he said. Tapia de Veer found it: creator Mike White said that he wanted “music that makes you feel like there’s gonna be some kind of human sacrifice at some point… Cristobal nailed that — and then some.”

You can listen to the Broken Record episode above.

Kanye West Plots “Donda” Tech Takeover

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Kanye West

Rap icon Kanye West has reportedly filed a trademark application to put his latest album title DONDA on a range of electronic products, taking a page from Dr. Dre handbook. Kanye Plots Tech-Takeover Kanye has made it no secret that the late Apple icon, Steve Jobs, is one of his influences. According to legal trademark […]