Kanye West Nixes Auto-Tune on Jay-Z's "Blueprint 3," Talks Book

With Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 officially no longer Island Def Jam property since the MC bought out his old contract, the album's producer Kanye West gave MTV an update on Jigga's anticipated LP. "Jay is in control of everything in his domain," Kanye said. "He's just been working on it, and it's gonna be amazing when he drops it." West didn't say if early songs from the album, like the Grammy-winning "Swagga Like Us" (which ended up on T.I.'s Paper Trail) and "Jockin' Jay-Z," would wind up on the final track list, but did add that the duo have made some changes to the album since they began recording the disc last year.

One of the changes — a positive or a negative depending on how you feel about West's own 808s & Heartbreak — is that all Auto-Tune-enhanced vocals have been removed from the album. "We actually removed all the songs with Auto-Tune off of his album to make the point that this is an anti-Auto-Tune album, even though I released an album that has all Auto-Tune!," West told MTV. "It doesn't matter to me. It's music; it's just sonics."

Kanye made the Blueprint 3 remarks while on a promotional tour for his advice book Thank You and You're Welcome. Kanye had some more interesting comments to impart, this time to Reuters, admitting during the book tour that he doesn't actually read and takes pride in being non-literary. "Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed," West said. "I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books. I like to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life."

Kanye's Thank You, what he calls "a collection of thoughts and theories," is a mere 52 pages long and features pearls of wisdom like "I hate the word hate!" and his personal favorite, "Get used to being used."

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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