Sat Apr 23, 2011 8:37 pm
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Watch the Throne (2010–present)
Main article: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
In May 2010, West made an animated television guest appearance on Fox's animated television series The Cleveland Show (a spin-off of Family Guy) as the voice behind "Kenny West", a rival of Cleveland Brown's son.[60] In his first episode he performed in a rap battle with Cleveland's son. The producers stated working with West was a very good experience and a reason they chose him was because they knew he was a fan of Family Guy.[61] Kenny West re-appeared in the season 2 premiere of The Cleveland Show.
West spent the first half of 2010 in Honolulu, Hawaii, working on his new album with the working title "Good Ass Job", later named My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, released on November 22, 2010.[62] West has cited Maya Angelou, Gil Scott-Heron and Nina Simone as his musical inspirations for this album. Outside production is said to come from RZA, Q-Tip, Pete Rock, and DJ Premier.[63][64] West also had Justin Vernon flown into his studio on Oahu after seemingly expressing interest in sampling one of Bon Iver's songs; Vernon proceeded to feature on a number of new tracks, including "Lost In The World," which features Vernon's vocal line from Woods.[65]
On May 28, the Dwele-assisted first single from the album, entitled "Power", leaked to the Internet. On June 30, the track was officially released via iTunes. The upcoming music video was quoted as being "apocalyptic, in a very personal way" by the director Marco Brambilla.[66]
On September 12, 2010, West performed a new song, "Runaway" featuring Pusha T, at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards.[67] Shortly after the performance, Kanye revealed he was working on a 35 minute short film based around the song. The movie is said to be influenced by film noir and concerns a fallen phoenix whom Kanye falls in love with.[68] On 15 October 2010, Kanye West was ranked 3rd in BET's "Top Ten Rappers of the 21st Century" list.[69]
Watch The Throne, an upcoming collaborative studio album by West and Jay-Z,[70] is scheduled to be released by Def Jam Recordings in 2011. It has been under production since August 2010 as part of West's GOOD Friday initiative of releasing new songs every Friday between August 20 and Christmas 2010.[71] West said through a recent interview with MTV that the album is "going to be very dark and sexy, like couture hip hop."[71][72][73] He appeared at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, performing the track "Lost in the World" from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.[74] On January 6, 2011, Kanye announced via Twitter that the first official single from Watch the Throne would be a song called "H.A.M" produced by Lex Luger. The song was released on January 11, 2011.[75] On January 23, 2011, Kanye revealed via his Twitter account that he will be releasing a new album in summer 2011.[76] On 17 April 2011 West closed the Coachella Festival with a headlining set that received glowing praise from fans and critics alike, with some reports of it being 'one of the greatest hip-hop sets of all time'.[77][78]
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