3.18.2009

Cleveland Show Producers Confirm Kanye West Involvement



Kanye West has never truly been out of the headlines. As a matter of fact, HipHopDX recently covered his popular website and upcoming denim line [click to read]. Aside from music and fashion, Kanye has also been a prominent fixture in television.

Recently, West sat in on a table read for an upcoming episode of The Cleveland Show, a spin-off of the very popular Family Guy series on Fox.

"It was surprising to us that [he] was so into it that he came to the table [read], and wonderfully surprising how cool he was, how funny he was and how unassuming he was," said Mike Henry, the executive producer and voice of Cleveland in an interview with People.com.

As mentioned in the previous DX article, West's blog really does garner attention. Apparently, it is one of the reasons he was asked to appear on the show.

"We knew Kanye was a big Family Guy fan because he invited [creator] Seth [MacFarlane] to his house a year or two ago. And there was a mention on his blog when the spin-off was announced that he was excited about it. We knew he was a big fan and a lot of us are fans of his."

An executive producer, Richard Appel also spoke on West's positive attitude.

"Before we came to the table ... there was only one line he didn't love and he came up with another idea and in a completely modest, nice way said, 'Would you mind if I changed just this one line?' And our feeling was, how many raps have we written? One? And how many has he written? Be our guest!"

His vocals were done, also, and he seemingly did an excellent job.

"We just recorded him in the booth and he was fantastic," added Appel. "Once he read it a couple times through, he just owned the character, which I guess isn't hard since he was named Kenny West. He said he'd be glad to [be back.]. I said we could write him in to the next 21 episodes!"

Taraji P. Henson will also appear on the episode. Another notable actress, Sanaa Lathan, is a series regular.

-HipHopDx.com