Kanye West brings Daft Punk to Grammys, searches 'Net

photo courtesy echo/KanyeUniverseCity.com

Kanye West, already a multiple Grammy-award winner, took home four more mini-gramophones at the 50th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night. West's latest, Graduation, earned him the Best Rap Album title (his third for as many albums) but failed to snag Album of the Year—also for the third time. This year, however, Kanye didn't waste precious airtime railing against the dubious Grammy voting system. He swiftly shut up any potential detractors with an electrifying (and electrified) performance of his Daft Punk-sampling hit "Stronger," wherein a giant pyramid opened up during the bridge of the song to reveal the mysterious French duo themselves, making their first-ever television appearance (and the band's been crafting beats since 1993!).

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But West's not all about just winning awards. In case you're worried about how the potential Microsoft takeover of Yahoo might effect your web querying habits, never fear: Kanye West is here! Wait, wait...it's not the literal flesh-and-blood hip-hop superstar, but rather his new, somewhat overmonikered search engine, SearchWithKanyeWest.com!

Huh? As unbelievable as it may sound, sometime between posting a tantalizing few pages from his upcoming book on his blog and planning a bangin' (and still TBA) summer tour, 'Ye teamed up with the custom search engine creators at Prodégé.com to engineer the, uh, engine, which is powered by Google and Ask.com.

So why not just use Google or Ask.com? The selling point for SearchWithKanyeWest.com (and various other Prodégé progeny like K-Fed, Beyonce, The Nuge and...Andrew Dice Clay?!?) is the "Swag Store," where loyal searchers can spend "Swag Bucks" on merchandise ranging from the "Stronger" single (40 Swag Bucks) to a nebulous "Classic Vintage Record" (35 Swag Bucks) to an eight-piece drum set (5400 Swag Bucks!).

Sadly, unlike Meatloaf and Shinedown, Kanye's not offering the chance to hang with him backstage as incentive, but keep an eye on the Swag Bucks blog; perhaps a massive "Meet Kanye" contest is on the horizon. Besides, since when does Googling yourself thousands of times a day amount to more than carpal tunnel and a wicked narcissistic complex?

BoogieDownWithKanyeWest.com at his one confirmed summer tour date: June 12 at Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tenn.

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