AI developer Robert Nickson has recorded a track AI has produced replicating Kanye West's voice in order to diss the rapper. Nickson recorded a verse and had a trained AI model of Kanye replace his vocals. The results are quite impressive, or frightening, depending on how you take it.
Hardware company Kano made a name for themselves last year through a partnership with Kanye West who helped them design a Stem Player which contained his album 'Donda 2'. They have in the meantime severed ties with West, although its cofounder and CEO Alex Klein is gallant enough to admit that some days he feels “blessed” to have gotten West's eye on a player's new video cut or color combination. This year, Kano is launching a new product—a Stem Player with music by Ghostface Killah. The unique album by the former Wu-Tang Clan member will be released on custom white and black Ghostface Stems, and will run $240 and $360, respectively. “This is music for these people who care about me... It’s nothing for me to go in the studio and cook something up and just give it to [fans]. I don’t care about that. If you want it, you’re going to go get it” - Ghostface Killah says to Fast Company.
Adidas has ended its partnership with Kanye West after his recent “unacceptable, hateful and dangerous” comments, Reuters reports. German sports company said it “does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” and therefore it would “terminate the partnership with Ye immediately, end production of Yeezy branded products, and stop all payments to Ye and his companies”. His products will be pulled from sale with immediate effect. Adidas estimated a short-term cost of this termination at €250 million. Adidas Yeezy partnership is said to be a billion-dollar-plus pillar of West’s net worth.
"Among Kanye’s West’s defenders, the thinking goes like this: He is a genius, a freethinker, an elevated conscience" - The New York Times' opinion piece goes. However - "Kanye is just a Black man who discovered Black conservatism and thinks it’s enlightenment. There is nothing complex or mysterious about it. He’s a Black man parroting white supremacy, while far too many brush it off, continue dancing to his music, and wear his clothes. West is a Black man sampling vintage anti-Black racism, remixing and releasing it under a new label: the tortured Black genius".
Roxy Music's guitarist Phil Manzanera talked to The Telegraph about how much he makes from music: "Luckily, Roxy have continued to be popular, so it’s like having a pension. I don’t have any other pensions... I was also lucky to have my guitar riff from my 1978 second solo album 'K-Scope' sampled in 2011 by Jay-Z and Kanye West, who built a whole song around it. The track, 'No Church in the Wild' on the 'Watch the Throne' album, won a Grammy and was hugely successful and used in films and lots of ads. It was like winning the lottery out of the blue. I get more than they get for it: a six-figure sum over 10 years. And they continue to pay me multiples of six figures because they’re so successful and I partly own my share. It’s probably more than I ever earned in Roxy: we had all the gold albums but no gold!".
"Indie artists like Roc Marciano, R.A.P. Ferreira, and more have incorporated DSP-sidestepping, direct-to-consumer models for years. But now, some mainstream artists like Kanye West, who is selling 'Donda 2' on his $200 Stem Player, are divesting from DSPs, and the reaction to it has been a mixed bag" - Complex goes on to question the motives of artists pulling their music from the big three streaming platforms.
Kanye West claims that he had generated over $2 million in sales from his Stem Player device. He would be releasing his new album, 'Donda 2', exclusively via his Stem Player. A handheld circular device allows users to split the star’s music (or their own music) into stems, i.e. isolating drums, vocals, bass, samples etc. It also enables users to manipulate these stems / samples, and create loops from them – meaning that West's fans can use his recordings as the basis to create fresh tracks. Costing $200, it can be purchased through KanyeWest.com.
Pitchfork shares a lovely introductory text about part 1 of 'Jeen-Yuhs', a new, 3-part Kanye West documentary, 21 years in the making: "Much of what Donda West says in 'Act 1 (Vision)' feels like ancestral wisdom, words from a loving parent that serve to humble and uplift her child. One passage in particular stands out, and Coodie even repeats it in his own narration of the film: 'You can stay on the ground and be in the air at the same time', she says, a paradox that West made true until the day Donda died".
Ahead of the February 2nd premiere of the 25th season, 'South Park' creators have released an orchestral performance of the 'SP' original 'Gay Fish'. This iconic tune from Season 13, Episode 5 was sung by a character named Kanye West, who, after a full episode of not understanding a joke about fishsticks, had just discovered, to his great relief, that not only was he an aquatic vertebrate, but he was a homosexual one at that.
A reminder to Dan Runcie's earlier essay: "Jay-Z, Rihanna, Kanye West are on the top shelf of rap’s new-money class. They became world-famous millionaires through the music industry, but realized they would have to sell more than music to become billionaires. The 'Run This Town' trio used music as the gateway, then capitalized on their influence at the height of their fame. Jay-Z made bank from selling Ace of Spades champagne and investing in startups. Rihanna built her Fenty empire into multiple brands. And Ye has sold so many Yeezys he’s probably lost count. The bottom line? Star power gets you in the door, but to maximize your platform, you need to sell something authentic that customers want to keep buying".
Created by Clarence “Coodie” Simmons and Chike Ozah (aka Coodie & Chike), the three-part documentary 'Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy' will premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival in January, Pitchfork reports. The project includes previously unreleased archival footage of the young Kanye West at work. The project, which reportedly sold for $30 million, has been in the making for 21 years. In addition to 'Jeen-Yuhs', a documentary based on Lizzie Goodman’s 2017 book 'Meet Me in the Bathroom' will ačlso premiere at Sundance next year, as well as Kathryn Ferguson’s documentary 'Nothing Compares', which examines the life and career of Sinéad O’Connor between 1987 and 1993.
Kanye West’s 'Donda' has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in the biggest week for any album released this year with 309,000 equivalent album units, Billboard reports. With 'Donda', Kanye West has once again tied Eminem for the record of most No. 1 debuts in a row on the albums chart, too. Eminem broke the tie in early 2020 with 'Music to Be Murdered By'. West has become one of only seven artists in chart history to release 10 chart-topping albums, alongside the Beatles, JAY-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Eminem, and Elvis Presley.
After much delay, Kanye West has released his 10th album 'Donda' with 27 songs spanning an hour and 48 minutes. The length of it is an issue with the critics. "Nobody needs all 27 of these tracks" - NME insists, adding, "but dig deep into its contents and you’ll find enough gems to make his 10th album worth your time". The Times hears a "sprawling and sometimes brilliant album". Pitchfork says the album is "barely finished and with a lot of baggage. Its 27 tracks include euphoric highs that lack connective tissue, a data dump of songs searching for a higher calling".
Input analyses Kanye West's career as it was mirrored in his fashion: "Kanye has curated his aesthetic universe to be one of the most recognizable in the music industry. His relationships with music and fashion have not only been symbiotic within his own life, but with the streetwear landscape around him. While the Yeezy label carves Kanye’s imprint within luxury fashion, he uses his merch as a creative playground, transforming each album into collectible garments. The lasting impact of Kanye’s merch has less to do with the artist himself, but more so with the creative ecosystem he creates around each project, and the aesthetic footprint it leaves behind". West's listening event for his still-unreleased album on August 5 proves the point - with 40,000 ticketed guests, it raked in $7 million from merch sales, breaking the record for highest-grossing U.S. tour.
'Dreams Still Inspire' by the Chicago underground rap duo Abstract Mindstate is the first album fully produced by Kanye West that was not his own since Common’s 'Be' in 2005. It is also the first release under West's new YZY SND imprint. Coming out nearly 20 years after the release of their first and only album, 2001’s 'We Paid Let Us In!', and "with lyrics and production that perfectly complement each other, Abstract Mindstate's reunion album is a masterclass in Hip-Hop fundamentals", Hot New Hip-Hop points out.
Kanye West levitated hundreds of feet in the air at the second live-stream of his highly anticipated album, 'Donda', Pitchfork reports. West was shown lying on his back as he was flown on a wire hundreds of feet in the air while his single, "No Child Left Behind" played. About 35,000 West fans witnessed the retooled 'Donda', which sounded more cohesive, with more beats and melodies.
Last Thursday Kanye West had an album-release party, and the day after his 10th album 'Donda' was to be released. It didn't come out. Vice explores "how quickly could 'Donda' - or any other record, for that matter - actually hit streaming services after it’s finished? The answer depends on who you ask, and who you are".
"Last week, Kanye West hosted a 'Donda' album listening party for 40,000+ fans at the Mercedez-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Kanye sold 40,000+ tickets for this event on three days' notice. Tickets were $20 or $50. He gave away around 5,000 seats, but still, he likely made at least $1 million from paid tickets. Plus merch sales. Plus the record-breaking Apple Music livestream. And all he did was press play and walk around the stadium. Only a handful of artists can pull this off" - Dan Runcie looks back at the release party of the album that wasn't released.
Kanye West announced his latest album 'Donda' for this weekend, although it wasn't released at the end. He did however throw an album listening party at the Atlanta football stadium, which impressed Music REDEF's Matty Karas: "It *looked* amazing. It wasn't a live performance so there was no stage. And there was no one sitting on the field which was covered in some kind of white material, over which Kanye roamed, in a red puffer jacket and WATCHMEN-like mask, while the album played. He would stand or sit in place for long stretches and then resume roaming, not saying a word, often raising one or both arms as if to give himself an amen. A lone, silent prophet wandering on what you might imagine was a cloud, surrounded by fans but also at a distance from them. It was less-as-more taken to its logical conclusion, and as arresting a music visual as I've seen in a long time".
A pair of prototype Nikes worn by Kanye West during his performances of 'Hey Mama' and 'Stronger' at the Grammy Awards in 2008 has been sold for $1.8 million in a private sale, al Jazeera reports. The sale marks the highest publicly recorded price for a sneaker sale and the first pair of sneakers to top $1 million. The buyer was sneaker investing platform RARES, the leader in fractional ownership, allowing users to invest in sneakers by buying and trading shares in them.
Kanye West's sneaker and apparel business Yeezy, a venture with Adidas AG and Gap Inc., has been valued at $3.2 billion to $4.7 billion by UBS Group AG, according to Bloomberg. An unaudited balance sheet of West finances includes also $122 million in cash and stock and more than $1.7 billion in other assets, including a significant investment in Skims, Kim Kardashian’s underwear label. West’s entire music catalog is worth $110.5 million. In 2015, West said he was $16 million in debt. A year later he said he owed $53 million. By 2018, however, he was earning more than $100 million in royalties through its Adidas relationship. Forbes made its calculations of West's wealth, and those are significantly lower. The Yeezy company that West is the sole owner of is currently worth $1.5 billion by Forbes' estimates, not $3.2 to $4.7 billion like the Bloomberg report implies. The Bloomberg report also mentioned an additional $1.7 billion in personal assets - Forbes thinks that number is closer to $160 million. Forbes estimates his total net worth to about $1.8 billion.
Apart from the biggest categories, there were some noticeable wins at the Grammys last night. Kaytranada won Best Dance/Electronic Album with 'Bubba', Fiona Apple won Best Rock Performance with 'Shameika' as well as Best Alternative Music Album with 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters', Brittany Howard won Best Rock Song with 'Stay High', The Strokes won Best Rock Album with 'The New Abnormal', Thundercat won Best Progressive R&B Album with 'It Is What It Is', Gillian Welch & David Rawlings won Best Folk Album with 'All The Good Times', Burna Boy won Best Global Music Album with 'Twice As Tall', Body Count won Best Metal Performance with 'Bum-Rush', even Kanye West won, in Best Contemporary Christian Music Album category with 'Jesus is King', tying Jay-Z as the most ever Grammy-awarded among hip-hop artists with 22 awards.
The Ringer points out to the fact that makes it seem like the last 20 years hadn't ever happened, according to the Grammys at least. So, Beyonce hasn't won Album of the Year Grammy, Kendrick Lamar hasn't won album of the year, and Kanye West hasn't. The Ringer wants us to ignore the Grammys. Why not repair it?!?
Kim Kardashian has filed for divorce from rapper Kanye West, according to CBS. The couple have been married for almost seven years and have four children together. Reports suggest Kardashian has requested joint legal and physical custody of their children.
500 performers and 300 backstage workers such as make-up artists and hair-stylists are suing Kanye West for up to $30 million in damages after allegations that he failed to pay up for his Sunday Service shows, The Sun reports. The two class-action lawsuits allege that West broke employment laws at his Hollywood Bowl opera 'Nebuchadnezzar' in November 2019. The allegations are said to include failing to pay hundreds of employees on time, or not at all, as well as not delivering the overtime wages, meal and rest breaks and business expenses to which employees were legally entitled.
Kanye West released a surprise EP 'Emmanuel' performed by Sunday Service on Christmas Day, Rolling Stone reports. The new project, executive produced and composed by West, arrives as a "celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ". It's five tracks of acapella songs in Latin.
Kanye West has admitted defeat in American presidential elections, and has turned his attention to the next election, in 2024, the USA Today reports. West cast his vote in Wyoming, where he penned his own name on a 2020 election ballot. The 43-year-old artist appeared on pre-printed ballots in just 12 states: Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Vermont. West got 60,000 votes across these 12 states, Deadline reports.
In a series of tweets, Kanye West outlined some “new recording and publishing deal guidelines”, demanding for artists to own the copyright for their recordings and songs, and lease them to the label and publisher “for a limited term. 1 year deals”, with those “service provider” partners taking a 20% cut of the income. Also, “every audio file, every asset, every deal stored WITH the money. Money and Music must stay together. When your term ends, download it all. Leave”.
Kanye West has uploaded photos of his recording and publishing deals to Twitter, and is demanding to be released from his contracts, Variety reports. "I need every lawyer in the world to look at these," he told his followers, while referring to the music industry as "modern-day slavery". West says he won't release new music until he is released from his deals. PDF document of the contracts - here.
Kanye West has spent nearly $6 million since entering the presidential race on July 4th, with him loaning approximately $6.7 million to his campaign between July and August. He’s received eight outside donations totaling $11,500. Most of the money spent has gone to consulting firms who’ve been working to get his name on states’ ballots. He has been kicked off more states’ ballots than he’s actually gotten on - he’s gotten his name on the ballot in just 10 states. In a recent survey, Kanye received just 2% of voters aged 18-34, so it seems his candidacy won't change much for the other candidates, especially since Democratic voters don't have a favorable opinion of him.
