Some Initial Thoughts on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”

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So, I need to spend some more time with Kanye West’s new album, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.” You can count on some more developed posts about it; those are on the slate for winter break. However, I thought I’d…

“Neckties” vs. “Warlords”: Yeezy and HOVA’s contesting masculinities

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So, in my earlier post about Jay-Z’s DOA, I argued that he was defending a more traditional ghetto-hetero-black masculinity against Kanye’s Autotuned insurgency into hip-hop and its canon of “proper” masculinities. Kanye’s LMFAO “Paranoid” remix (Youtube below) makes it clear…

Death of Autotune, or massive repudiation of perceived effeminacy?

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Ok, so, Jay-Z has released a new track titled “DOA (Death of Autotune)”, produced by Mr. Autotune extraordinare Kanye West. There’s a ton of media buzz about the track (which seems to be the purpose of a track which attacks…