Kanye West Allegedly Staged His 'Banned' Album Cover

By Jett Wells Posted Jan 10th 2011 06:01PM

We always knew Kanye West had a knack for drama, but we never thought he'd stage it for personal gain. According to a piece in the New Yorker (via Vulture, as the full piece is not online), West asked artist George Condo to design the first controversial album cover for 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' in hopes it would be "banned."

"A couple of weeks before my first visit to Condo's studio, Kanye West, the rapper, asked him to do a painting for the cover of his new album, 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,' " writer Calvin Tomkins recalls in the piece. "West said that he had seen paintings by Condo, and wanted to collaborate with him. According to Condo, he also said that he was looking for 'something that will be banned.' "

Meaning the original album cover, reportedly banned by an unknown entity, may have been nothing more than a publicity stunt.

See people react to Kanye's "banned" album cover:

According to the story, after Condo agreed to West's request, the rapper picked out the cover from a handful of designs, one of which included a decapitated head.

"West came to Condo's studio, where for several hours they listened to tapes of his music, and over the next few days Condo made eight or nine paintings," Tomkins writes. "Two of them were portraits of West, one in extreme closeup, with mismatched eyes and four sets of teeth. Another showed his head, crowned and decapitated, placed sideways on a white slab, impaled by a sword. There was also a painting of a dyspeptic ballerina in a black tutu, a painting of the crown and the sword by themselves in a grassy landscape, and a lurid scene of a naked black man on a bed, straddled by a naked white female creature with fearsome features, wings, no arms, and a long, spotted tail. West chose that one."

Click here to see Kanye's old album cover.

Tags: kanye west, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Comments

(10)

Monday 10 January

By Katherine

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What a racist thing to do. Can you imagine the outcry if a white singer had done the same with a black male monster like creature on top of her? Stop the racism Kanye!

By ivan lichtedus

fake album cover? doesn't surprise me: everything about kaney is fake...his career took a dive with his outing on South Park, and he hasn't recovered since, especially after the taylor swift fiasco...shut up and go home, gayfish

By john

kanye west worlds biggest a hole

By djtonydee

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WHO GIVES A CRAP ABOUT KANYE WASTE

By MICHAEL

Gee. that's not all that's staged....how about his talent, oops, I meant lack of talent

By frank

le'kayne worst...is most famous as a woman beating ghetto thug.

By chicobombico

He seems to be a loud mouthed wind bag. someone should knock his teeth out and be done with it.

By OfAlaska

Him so tough, him so cool, him don' havta go to school, wear junk jewelery brag like fool, jus' another ghetto tool...

By Mr. Kidd

AGH!!! This is just another one of those "Thank You, Captain Obvious" articles. I'm SICK of them!

Tuesday 11 January

By YellowRose3218

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This is nothing, that everyone over 18 already knew.
The guy will pull any kind of stunt, to sell his crap to the kids. Its the only way he can sell anything now.

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