Kanye West Hits the Studio

Kanye West surprised fans by sampling King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man" on his new single "Power," but a new clip of the MC in the studio working on his upcoming album Good Ass Job reveals he's tinkering with even more shocking material. In the video, filmed by DJ Carnage and posted on Rap Radar, Kanye and girlfriend Amber Rose are in a Hawaiian recording studio, mincing and cutting the song "Popular" from the musical Wicked. While there's no word whether this track will wind up on Good Ass Job, as the album is reportedly called, the fact that West is able to transform Broadway into hip-hop only reinforces his prowess as a producer.

Other than "Power," (read Rolling Stone's review of the track) not much is known about Good Ass Job, but after making a surprise appearance with Jay-Z at the Isle of Wight festival and booking a performance at the BET Awards, it appears as though Kanye is snapping back into action after leaving the spotlight following last year's infamous VMA incident with Taylor Swift. The 808s & Heartbreak rapper also recently debuted "Power" onstage at a Kanye West Foundation benefit show in Chicago on June 6th, which was also West's 33rd birthday.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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