[Video] Busta Rhymes: "Thank You" (Ft. Lil Wayne, Q-Tip & Kanye West)
Busta Rhymes has been making a comeback of sorts since signing with YMCMB last year, and today dropped the video for his star-studded, feature-heavy track, "Thank You" featuring Busta's former, A Tribe Called Quest collaborator, Q-Tip as well as Kanye West and his boss, Lil Wayne. The video, directed by Director X, shows Busta doing his thing with some ladies and has cameos from the likes of A$AP Ferg, Fashawn and Mack Wilds. You can find "Thank You" on Busta's expected 2014 release, E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event) 2. For those who can't wait that long, you may be in luck. There have been rumors of a Busta Rhymes/Q-Tip collaboration by the name of The Abstract & The Dragon, expected December 12.
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[Video] Seth Rogen, James Franco parody Kanye West's "Bound 2" video
When Kanye West dropped the video for "Bound 2" last week, it received a lot of mixed reactions to it. Considering Kanye's pedigree and creative control over his image and branding, it surprised many people. While I understand why he did what he did (I'll probably expand on these thoughts later), it's safe to say that nobody was expecting the final product. However, that's not to say that the video doesn't have its fans.
Seth Rogen and James Franco can be counted as two of them. While shooting their next film together, The Interview, the two decided to film a shot-for-shot parody of the video with Franco playing Yeezy and Rogen playing Kim. What transpires is one of the most awkward and hilarious parody videos yet. Did you know Rogen had back hair? Have you ever seen how awkward Franco is lip syncing and compensating for Kanye's weird hand movements?
Is it better than Kanye's own "Bound 2" video? Watch the video below and find out for yourselves.
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[Video] Kanye West: "Bound 2"
"Bound 2" is the best song off of Kanye's Yeezus. His live performance of the song on Jimmy Fallon a few months ago with Charlie Wilson cemented the song's legacy in the hearts of most Kanye fans and illustrated just how dedicated he is to his music. Earlier this morning, the rapper appeared on Ellen to premiere the official music video for "Bound 2" and it's... different.
Complete with a new remix featuring a piano intro, cheesy CGI, and questionable time lapse shots of American landscapes and horses running dramatically, the bulk of the video shot by Nick Knight features Kanye riding on a motorcycle in front of a green screen with a topless Kim Kardashian in tow. Compared to how amazing and innovative West's videos have been in the past, "Bound 2" feels like he's just dialing it in. Sure, it serves as a love letter to Kim, which is a valiant move on Kanye's part, and I'm not going to actually complain about seeing Kim topless. Still, I was expecting something much better for Yeezus' best song.
Nevertheless, you can watch the music video for "Bound 2" below and draw your own conclusions. The full interview between Kanye and Ellen can also be found below. Enjoy!
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New 'Yeezus' Tour Dates Announced
Kanye's modern epic, better known as the 'Yeezus' tour will, in fact, make its way through Ye's hometown after all. After several dates were moved or pushed back due to technical issues and West and fiancee Kim Kardashian's engagement, the Chicago dates of the tour have been adjusted to December 17 & 18. The shows this weekend would have been interesting as it would have crossed paths of the Yeezus tour and Chance The Rapper's Social Experiment tour, which rolls through town this Saturday. With an unconfirmed special guest still under wraps, the smart money for that date was obvious. The new dates do coincide with the end of Chance's tour, so there's a . . . chance? Anyway, keep it posted to RH for continuing coverage and check out Kanye's site for more on rescheduled dates.
Kanye West's Yeezus Tour Chicago dates postponed indefinitely
Recently, Kanye West's massive Yeezus Tour faced delays over a truck accident that left a member of its road crew injured. While the plans to continue the tour were attempted, it appears that a few of the next tour dates will unfortunately be skipped. While dates in Vancouver, Denver, and Minneapolis were confirmed to be missed, Ruby Hornet just received an anonymous email sent out to United Center employees that the Yeezus Tour will, in fact, miss its two Chicago dates later this week. Looks like Kanye fans will have to await his homecoming a bit longer. You can read the email below.
YouTube Music Awards... Interesting
The inaugural YouTube Music Awards (YMA) took place Sunday night in New York City. The website-sponsored music awards show, touted as a celebration of the do it yourself content environment Youtube helped to foster. It was billed as the crowning moment of years worth of artists that have taken things into their own hands to make it on their own terms. From the sounds of it, the YouTube Music Awards seemed poised to crown those who had used the website as a come up. Think Mac Miller, Macklemore, Chance The Rapper and the hundreds of young artists and directors across the country using the site to get their art to the world.
Instead, the YMAs featured headliners Arcade Fire, Lady Gaga and Eminem performing while shooting live music videos with program director and legendary video director Spike Jonze. It was, in the words of one of my former Journalism professors, one of the biggest public blowjobs in the history of already blowy award shows. The awards show was, in essence, Jonze's wet dream, a grand stage for the director to remind everyone he's pretty good at what he does. Add in the fact that hosts Jason Schwartzmann and Reggie Watts rarely had any idea what to say and you have yourself a show with a production value seemingly lower than many of the videos the site hosts.
In a similar position to that of MTV on September 14, 1984 when the Video Music Awards first entered the world, YouTube finds itself as the de facto landing spot for music videos in today's media climate. Perhaps because of this distinction, the YMAs came to fruition yesterday. Jonze, earlier last week, voiced his interest in creating "live music videos" at the awards show. While playing on YouTube's reputation as an open-source type format from which anyone can make a name for themselves, Jonze missed the mark in directing videos for larger-than-life acts such as Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, Eminem and Avicii; forgoing the up and comers that make the greatest use of the streaming video site.
It wasn't all bad. While the artists featured may have been different from what I had in mind when first picturing the YMAs, organizers did get plenty right. For one, by producing a live awards show, albeit a show Jonze described beforehand as one in which "We’ve been given a lot of room to make a mess,” YouTube was able to step up and prove itself a viable alternative to traditional television-an important distinction as viewers increasingly ditch the tube and cable for free streaming service via the website. Winners were also voted on by fans, a nod to the user-generated content and interaction that has made YouTube the media Goliath it is today. While Eminem interestingly won 'Artist of the Year' days before his first album in two years came out and kid's group Girls' Generation won best video, it was a good move to leave it to the fans. . . I guess.
Regardless of what I or anyone else thought of the show last night, it happened, and that's all that really matters at the end of the day. The web was flooded with fresh memes and, soon, a slew of new Jonze-directed videos. Any first run is going to be a little rough around the edges (see: early VMAs), but it will be interesting to see where YouTube takes the fledgling awards setup-to the mainstream or tailored to the users actually frequenting the site and providing much of the content. Either way, organizers of the show and YouTube can sleep easy knowing they're having a better week than former YouTube owner Chad Hurley, who got himself in Kanye West's line of fire this week, although Tyler, The Creator may feel differently (see below).
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Kanye Talks Life With Ryan Seacrest
The meltdown via Twitter over Jimmy Kimmel aside, the larger than life Kanye West has come across rather human as of late. Albeit, not at his shows where he can be found wearing golden masks and singing from cliffs with Jesus, but rather in interviews where he seems to actually be fairly genuine. Last night he linked up with none other than Ryan Seacrest to talk about his recent engagement to Kim Kardashian, his nerves about raising his new baby North and much more. Check it all out below.
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Sunday Coffee Sipper: The Week in Music
A lot went down in the music world since I last sat down to write a Coffee Sipper piece a week ago. Instead of trying to choose one event to focus on for an entire piece, I decided to dig deeper into several of the goings-on that came to light since last Sunday.
Chance The Rapper begins Tour: Chicago's own Chance The Rapper kicked off a tour of his own Friday night in Champaign, Illinois, just outside the campus of the University of Illinois. Setting out on his first solo headlining tour, dubbed the "Social Experiment Tour" Chance, music director Peter CottonTale and backing band Greg Landfair and Nico Segal rehearsed for a week with stage hands and sound to make sure there were no surprises the day of. Renting out the Metro and Reggie's on different occasions throughout the week, the team had everything down before heading south where Chance's two part show (one half solo, the other half with a band) went off without a hitch. Vic Mensa joined him onstage for an encore of "Cocoa Butter Kisses" and seemingly all of Save Money made the two hour trip to send Chano off to Pittsburgh appropriately. Stay tuned to RH for updates as the tour moves across the country.
