You can't really boil the essence of a whole city into one little song. more ›

Five months after filing suit against Kanye West and Jay-Z for copyright infringement of his 1967 hit "Different Strokes, soul legend Syl Johnson might be just weeks away from a resolution. more ›

I appeared on FOX's Good Day Chicago this morning to chat about last night's Grammys telecast. Watch the video and let us know your thoughts on the show. more ›

Watch the new video for "Ni**as in Paris" from Jay-Z and Kanye West, comprised of "Watch The Throne" tour footage. Also: heed the epilepsy warning. They're not playing around. more ›

Today is rapper Kid Cudi's birthday, so we thought it'd be a good time to revisit his 2010 music video for "Erase Me," featuring Kanye West. more ›

As a post MLK-day, post Kanye-before-he-was-famous treat, The Fader shared video of young Mr. West in middle school reading a poem he wrote in honor of the civil rights leader called "His Name Is Love." more ›

Back in his teenage days, before he had status or a MacBook Air he almost broke because he was typing so hard, Kanye West was just another schmo getting his hip-hop hustle on. more ›

Oh Kanye; we can always count on you to deliver the whacked out goods on Twitter when we are having a slow news day. more ›

Though it might not be widely discussed, given the context of snowstorms and mayoral elections, 2011 was a very good year for Chicago music, both locally and nationally, in mainstream circles and outside them. more ›

Wednesday night's Grammy nominations may have shaped as the Adele show, with Bon Iver crashing the party in much the same way The Arcade Fire did last year. But this is Chicagoist and we're gonna focus on the local acts. more ›

Now we know what a puppet show created by Kanye West and Rhymefest may have looked like. more ›

We haven't heard this much grunting on a record since Screaming Jay Hawkins cut "Constipation Blues." more ›

In the sense that the iconic rappers' sampling house apparently didn't clear a sample of Syl Johnson's "Different Strokes" which appears on the duo's Watch The Throne record. more ›

Kanye West's outbursts seem to be lessening in their frequency, but when he does open his mouth and acts like a petulant child, he makes it count. more ›

Kanye brought his gaggle of ballerinas with him to Summerfest. more ›

Normally, Kanye West is making news for saying or doing something stupid. This is a welcome change of pace. more ›

Hot ladies, sweet rides, water cascading down naked chests; Kanye West could learn a thing or two about video production from this fan-made video. OK, probably not, but it's entertaining nonetheless! more ›

Patrick Stump, former Fall Out Boy and a future Soul Punk, covers Kanye West at Schubas. Rolling Stone is there to document the whole thing. more ›

Over the weekend, Change.org, an "online activism platform for social change" that allows its users to create online petitions the site then hosts, announced on its blog that MTV said it would "not air in its current form" Kanye West's video for "Monster,"because of one of their petitions. There's just one problem: MTV doesn't play videos in the first place. MTV, in a statement released to Hip-Hop DX and other media sites, says the video has not been banned. BUM BUM BUUMMMMMM. more ›

French director Gaspar Noe’s sure to be cult classic Enter The Void, and its kaleidoscopic, bombastic visual style, was ripe for the music video plucking. After all, consider the fact that music videos have a much shorter time frame to have an impact their viewers than movies do. (Check out the sequence here). Kanye West’s video for “All Of The Lights”, off of Myy Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, will no doubt become exhibit A of clips taking cues from Noe’s rich aesthetic. more ›

Of course something called the Portland Cello Project would do something like cover Kanye West's "All Of The Light." Why wouldn't they? more ›

Just when you thought it was safe to check your Tweetstream again: Kanye's back. While the Bears were inspiring feelings of rage--some unfounded, some not--in their loyal fanbase, West went on a Twitter tear Sunday. Only instead of apologizing to Taylor Swift, or going off on beer-flavored pineapples, the former Fatburger backer gave some music-related news: A new album by summertime; a video for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy standout cut "All of The Lights"; and more hype for his collaborative LP with Jay-Z, Watch The Throne. more ›

We heard over the weekend that Kanye West's Fatburger in Orland Park closed. Our mourning began in earnest, as we wondered what we would do to quench our musician-driven fast food restaurant yearnings without him. Then, a shining star emerged on the horizon to make everything ok - Flavor Flav to the rescue! This weekend, the musician and reality TV star opened Flav's Fried Chicken in Clinton, IA. Unbeknownst to us (and this may change our opinion of Flav) he has a culinary degree and restaurant experience, and plans to actually work at the new restaurant. As our regular readers know, we only approve of celebrity-chef driven restaurants if the chefs are actually cooking, so maybe this one will pass our test. more ›

A couple of years ago, Kanye West had a dream. That dream was to bring California-based Fatburger to Chicago. With hard work and determination, Kanye's dream to provide delicious burgers to many deserving people in Chicagoland came true. Kanye West's food company, KW Foods, LLC was able to get permission to develop ten Fatburger locations in and around the Chicago area. The first Fatburger opened in Orland Park at 15110 South La Grange Road with a lot of buzz. But after a year and a half of operation, the first Fatburger in the Chicago area has closed down:

James Newell, Fatburger's director of operations, pointed to the recent financial performance of the store as the reason the store closed, "It's unfortunate, but we hope to have a presence in Orland Park again in the future."

It appears as if Kanye West has no intention of slowing down the amount of ridiculous in 2011, and for that we are very happy. Today he vaults so far over being meta that the internet may very wel swallow itself whole. more ›

Yo, Kanye! We heard you like Kanye in your watches, so we put a Kanye in your watch so Kanye can watch Kanye while Kanye watches his watch! more ›

Kanye West took all of his deep and dark inner turmoil and turned it into one of last year's most critically lauded albums. Josh Groban takes Kanye's Tweets and turns it into an early contender for 2011's Album of the Year. In other news, this reminds us that we're way overdue at reviving our Kanye's Tweet of the Week series. more ›

Kanye West's video for "Monster" leaked out over the break, and it's cool and all, but you haven't lived until you've seen the Muppet-ized version! We reccomend you throw on some headphones if you're gonna crank this at work. more ›

Love him or hate him - and honestly, most folks vacillate between both emotions regularly when it come to this Chicago hip-hop impresario - it’s undeniable that Kanye West was the Chicago artist with the largest national impact in 2010. West mastered the art of remaining in the pop cultural dialogue through willful manipulation of his own image through various social media channels, a public discourse with a former President, a deluge of free music via his G.O.O. D. Friday releases, publicly sparring with the Today show, and the release of the critically lauded and top of the year-end-list dominating My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. more ›

The folks at Fake Shore Drive have new tracks online for you from Twista and Kid Sister ready to roll. more ›