Morning Thread: Leave The Singing To Singers?

Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak, on which he spends the majority of the time singing instead of rapping, has brought up a fascinating question: Should rappers sing?

After West appeared on Sunday night’s “American Music Awards” telecast singing “Heartless” from the new album, a flurry of negative comments hit the net, with a Yahoo! Music blogger even suggesting he stick to the studio until somebody invents “some sort of portable Auto-Tunes hold-to-throat device.” Ouch.

Photo: AP Photo
08 MTV Video Music Awards, Paramount Pictures Studio, Los Angeles.

So what do you think? Is this just another self-indulgent musical project or a bold artistic move (remember, Queen Latifah and Andre 3000 started out rapping and they’ve done just fine)?

And for that matter, should singers keep off the MC tip (Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefani)?