Kanye’s all-star album line-up for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

M.I.A, La Roux and Alicia Keys, among others, are set to appear on Kanye West’s new album. The ‘Runaway’ rapper announced his fifth album will be called ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ earlier this week, and while Kanye has previously confirmed certain stars will appear - including Jay-Z, RZA and Beyonce Knowles - it seems his guest list is much longer than previously thought. As well as those previously mentioned, Kanye said he’s also been in the studio with Kid Cudi, Mos Def and Santigold and that indie musician Justin Vernon is “all over” the album.

One track which has already been leaked, ‘Lost In The World’, features Justin’s vocals. Kanye’s celebrity album cast could be part of his striving to fill the gap left by ‘King Of Pop’ Michael Jackson’s sudden death last year, a role he sees himself in line to fulfill. He told the Daily Mirror newspaper: “With the passing of Michael Jackson, I feel a responsibility to bring things to our generation that can inspire and bring real culture to pop culture. I don’t sleep anymore thinking how we are going to fill this gap, and create something to inspire on the level he did.”

Although Kanye has mentioned a large number of people involved with ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’, he lines are blurred between which artists will appear on the commercially released album and who will appear in his G.O.O.D Fridays series, which has so far seen mainly extended and remixed versions of tracks from the albums featuring a number of rappers and producers. ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ will be released on November 22.

Gallery: Kanye’s all-star album line-up for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Mark Ronson Planning Originals for The Business

Mark Ronson banned all cover songs on his new album The Business.

The music producer - whose 2007 album Version featured successful covers of songs by Kaiser Chiefs and Coldplay, among others - said this time around he had got artists to collaborate with him on original songs, which had been a fun and “interesting” process.

“There’s no covers, and no horns. It’s written with some of the people that actually wrote the songs I covered on the last album and that I didn’t actually even know at the time,” the 34-year-old told NME.com. “It’s quite interesting to write songs from scratch with those people, like Dave McCabe of The Zutons who wrote ‘Valerie’, and Nick Hodgson, of Kaiser Chiefs.”

Mark also revealed he had collaborated with Santigold, Scissor Sisters, Cathy Dennis, rapper Pill and Mike Snow for his forthcoming album, The Business.

Speaking on when it was likely to be released, he said: “Probably May, June depends how quick I can get it done.”

Gallery: Mark Ronson Planning Originals for The Business