Did you enjoy your Kanye time off? Good. Because he's back, basically. Just in time for the tail end of the backlash to the backlash to the backlash, West and Jay-Z are ramping up their new project: Watch the Throne, a collaborative EP slated for early March. "H.A.M." is the first single--the god Elliott Wilson suggests that may stand for "Hatin' Ass Motherfuckas," and we would not bet against him--and last night, Kanye returned to his increasingly desolate Twitter account to tweet a release date ("1.11.11," next Tuesday) and some single art:

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Animal New York points us to the hip-hop-inspired art of Swyndle & Hawks, self-described "thieves" who "acquire...icons" only to "degenerate them from their exaggeration and leave them to their insignificance." One piece from this year, entitled "10 Crack Commandments," features the lyrics from the Notorious B.I.G. classic from 1997's Life After Death chiseled into marble, no Moses. Commandments include, "Never let no one know how much dough you hold"; "Never let em know your next move"; "Never trust nobody," and so on. A close-up photo and the song after the jump...

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photo by the Shaltzes

Brooklyn photographer Jason Shaltz wants you to know that he's been working on The Juggalo, his debut photography show that opens tonight, since this past February. That is, before Insane Clown Posse's "Miracles" video went viral, before the unruly Juggalo masses hurled rocks, bottles, and dildos at Tila Tequila, before The Men Who Stare At Goats author informed the Internet the six-year-old revelation that Insane Clown Posse followed God, before, oh you know, this. What's more, Shaltz has considered himself a Juggalo for over a decade, so when WNYC's Soundcheck wanted a bona fide "Juggalo" to speak on the air about Insane Clown Posse for a segment, he's the only local guy any of us could find to represent the culture. So he'll hear your criticisms that the world doesn't need any more Juggalo-documenting opportunists, but for Shaltz, his project has nothing to do with a meme, but his life.

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All images courtesy Bose Pacia

The young, Queens-born tape artist Aakash Nihalani did the geometrically stoned cover for Das Racist's Shut Up, Dude mixtape. He's had his distinctive, oddly placed, brightly colored tape installations ripped off by everybody from other street artists to Vampire Weekend. And he's got a new, Jeff Koons-pranking solo show up this Thursday at Dumbo gallery Bose Pacia, entitled Overlap. Das Racist, of course, are playing the afterparty at 17 Frost. In advance of Nihalani's solo debut at the gallery, we chatted a bit about the upcoming show and his brushes with various local musicians, both friendly and otherwise.

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What a pleasant surprise to stagger into the Guggenheim Saturday and, in the midst of the museum's YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video exhibit -- an elaborate display of 25 clips guest-curated by a panel featuring everyone from Laurie Anderson to most of Animal Collective to Ryan McGinley to Takashi Murakami -- encounter the famously mesmerizing Dark Side of the Moon-referencing shot from Die Antwoord's "Zef Side" video. Yes, everyone's favorite South African meme-rappers were, albeit briefly, hailed as High Art.

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photo by Abby Manock

Bonnaroo and body odor go together like Irish men and Jameson, which is why so many of the from-the-mud testimonials focus on the showering aspect of the three-day hackey-sacks-and-hulahoops showdown--or lack thereof. Apparently there are only two primary on-site option for scrubbing yourself clean: 1) Paying $7 for an actual shower; 2) Standing half-naked under a "mushroom fountain" for free, which basically makes this one spot on the grounds, ah, an olfactory oasis. Why anyone here, but not there, might care? New York artist Maya Hayuk, who's work tends to show up in places like Cinders Gallery and Secret Project Robot, is the one responsible for the fungi fountain's trippy psychedelics.

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Something for Everybody's awesome cover

The first Devo studio album in two decades, Something for Everybody, comes out next Tuesday. We've been indifferent, largely because these trumped-up late-career recording-returns (cough and cough) are almost always awful, or worse, boring. Devo, live? Any time. (They were terrific at SXSW 2009.) Mark Mothersbaugh's rugs? When that cash windfall comes, top of the home-furnishings list. But Devo, who're annoyingly too self-important to play All Tomorrow's Parties, trying to duplicate "Girl U Want" 20 years later on Warner Brothers' dime? No, thank you.

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all photos and captions by Rebecca Smeyne

YIMBY columnist Chris Weingarten's contribution used the album as a platform for what appears to be... well, let's leave it to Chris, who chimes in with an update. "My piece is the jar itself, which is full of water and the record after put it in a blender. No bodily fluids were harmed in the making of this piece."

Damn, there was a plethora of lady parts at the Front Room Galleries last night in DUMBO--not a bunch, not a lot, a plethora. Makes sense. This was the opening of an art show where the white vinyl-sleeved 12-inch single of Ninjasonik's party-rap threat "Somebody Gonna Get Pregnant" was the primary canvas. So affixed to walls last night was an album cover, unfolded, and rigged to resemble a baby ninja emerging from a rather gruesome birth canal. It looked, harrowingly, like a spread from an adult pop-up book.

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If there's any better specific evocation of desktop anxiety and mainframe malfunction, we haven't seen it--no surprise on an album filled with technophobic anthems, from "XXXO" to the so-far unreleased "The Message" and beyond. Lynn Hirschberg might argue that this cover, in juxtaposing M.I.A.'s beauty with the ugly YouTube interface, is "a little unkind" to the free video service provider, but we think those gold bars look quite fetching. [Rap-Up]

It's a Tracy Morgan phrase turned Bushwick cops-are-coming party-mantra, and now Ninjasonik's nightly promise that "Somebody Gonna Get Pregnant" is the centerpiece of a Brooklyn art show. Last winter, the heavy-lidded King Cobra-rap trio, with the help of all-around creative guy Nick Chatfield-Taylor, sent out more than 60 copies of Ninjasonik's 12-inch vinyl single "Somebody Gonna Get Pregnant" to friends, artists, and collaborators. The request was simple enough: do whatever you want with the white sleeve.

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