Producer Kanye: New Jay-Z Album 'Anti-Auto-Tune'

(NEWSER) - Jay-Z's new Blueprint 3 seems to have critics divided. Some see flashes of brilliance showing the rap veteran at his best, while others see a mediocre effort that relies too much on celebrity.

• Jay-Z sounds "hungrier than he has in years on about half the tracks, while sharing time with guest stars or grappling with undercooked production on the rest," writes Greg Kot for the Los Angeles Times. "Yet even at three-quarters speed, Jay-Z can still be formidable."

(NEWSER) - Jay-Z confirmed to RapRadar today that he has left Def Jam Records after more than a decade. The news follows an unconfirmed report on HitsDailyDouble that the rapper bought out his contract for $5 million. Jay-Z, 39, owed Def Jam one more album, but he was eager to move on to his new Roc Nation venture under the Live Nation umbrella. His Blueprint 3, with Kanye West as a producer, is expected out this year. More»

From Radiohead to Bon Iver, Paste hits the highlights

(NEWSER) - Paste takes a look back at the past decade—and its own 10-year history—with its list of the 50 best albums of the ‘00s:

• No. 1. Sufjan Stevens, Illinoise: “His music pushed boundaries between pop and classical.”
• No. 4. Radiohead, Kid A: Marked “the watershed artistic transition toward more electronic-based experimentation.”
• No. 8. OutKast, Stankonia: “OutKast’s edgiest and most inspired record.”
• No. 10. MIA, Arular: “Her thrilling, slang-tangled debut connected musical and political rebellion.”

Rap's up-and-coming name follows in the footsteps of Kanye West, Andre 3000

(NEWSER) - The premise of Kanye West protégé Kid Cudi’s Man on the Moon: The End of the Day is that he’s “not on the same planet as other rappers. The truth is that he’s not in the same genre,” writes Julian Benbow for the Boston Globe. The debut album “is a lot of things. It’s spacey, adventurous, and ridiculously intriguing if only because it’s so different. But it’s not rap”—more like “experimental and emotional hip-hop.” Elsewhere: More»

Three of hip-hop's biggest team up in video for new single

(NEWSER) - Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West romp around a post-apocalyptic New York in the much-anticipated video for “Run This Town” off Jay-Z's upcoming Blueprint 3, reports MTV.com. The clip portrays the three as "warlords in a 23rd-century turf war," writes James Montgomery, but that's beside the point. "It's three of the decade's biggest artists, appearing on one of the year's most talked-about songs, promoting the hugest rap album in recent memory. It really doesn't matter what they're doing in the video—their combined wattage is that powerful." More»