Kanye West

Kanye West reigns as pop culture’s preeminent wild card. He’s the glitch in the matrix, a mad genius who transforms just about everything he does, from Tweeting to attending awards shows to doing interviews, into crazed performance art. On My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, his fifth album and much-ballyhooed return to hip-hop following the moody, Auto-Tuned electro-pop of 808s & Heartbreak, the rapper/producer/visionary seems perpetually on the verge of giving in to darkness and anarchy. 

Updated 06/22/2011