Music, Kanye West | featured news

Jay-Z and Kanye West's recent hit "Niggas in Paris" is about them. They rap about being so phenomenally rich, about how they "ball so hard," buy Rolexes and cars, pop gold bottles with models in Paris nightclubs, that the rest of us slobs couldn't fathom their lives.

Adele scored six Grammy nominations on Wednesday, including for record, song and album of the year, but the owner of the 2011's best-selling album with "21" wasn't the night's top nominee - and that wasn't the evening's only surprise....

Summer 2011 has given us many things, some of them good. Three months ago, only the earliest adopters had heard of Kreayshawn, the Weeknd, Fall Creek Boys Choir, or countless other current iPod staples. Foster the People are famous now. So are LMFAO (like we said, it’s not all good).

In Sunday’s fading minutes, hip-hop America huddled around the digital watercooler for the exclusive iTunes release of “Watch the Throne,” a galactically hyped collaboration that Jay-Z and Kanye West somehow kept from leaking to the masses.

Otis is back, Otis is back! The King of Soul may have passed 40-plus years ago, but Jay-Z and Kanye West have resurrected Redding's spirit on a new track off their highly anticipated Watch the Throne LP.

Kanye West has backed out of a scheduled performance on NBC's "Today" show after getting upset with how his interview with host Matt Lauer this week was handled. West's record company confirmed the cancellation to "Today" on Friday after the rapper said on his Twitter account that he wouldn't perform. He was scheduled to appear Nov. 26, part of a promotion drive for his new disc, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," which is being released Nov. 22.

Kanye West told an audience at a screening of his film, "Runaway," that he thought about killing himself, but now feels a responsibility to make a meaningful contribution to pop culture and art.

Just think, it was only 12 months ago that Taylor Swift became the nation's most supported underdog; Kanye West became, well, not; Katy Perry was first publicly propositioned by her now-fiancé (and last year's VMA host) Russell Brand; and Chelsea Handler was making waves by pissing off celebrities…in the funniest way possible.

For those tuning in to the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, don't count on a Kanye West and Taylor Swift duet.

Hip-hop star Kanye West is still feeling the pain over his ambush of Taylor Swift last year - and he's expressing his pain all over Twitter.