Kanye West denies giving up hip hop

Washington (ANI): Rapper Kanye West has denied giving up hip hop, insisting that the genre is still close to his heart. The Stronger hitmaker was quoted as announcing he has finished with the genre and said "Hip-hop is over for me. I sing, not rap, on this album. I now want to be grouped among those musicians you see in those old black-and-white photos the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles."

However, now he insists that his comments don't mean that he will be giving up rap. "I never said, ''Hip hop is over!'' I perform hip hop every day of my life. Some paper out of the UK ran that as a quote. I'm in New Zealand and people have been asking me about it. I've done a hundred shows this year," Contactmusic quoted him as writing on his blog.

"Yo bottom line is I work. I work to death and people try to find negativity in the positive energy I put out. The almost superhuman amount of work I put out. People really have there (sic) feathers ruffled about this album don't they? Good!" he added.