Kanye West was inspired to add orchestral horns and strings to his sound by British 'trip-hop' band PORTISHEAD. The rap star reveals he loved the look of the artwork on Portishead's 1998 album Roseland NYC Live, which featured singer Beth Gibbons surrounded by an orchestra and dreamed of emulating it. West tells Rolling Stone magazine, "Seeing this album cover did so much for me. This picture inspired me. I saw it years back but on my first album I couldn't afford real strings. "So after I won those Grammys (awards)... I ran and got a string section. "Hip-hop never had strings that lush with drums that hard but Portishead had that, and they sounded hip-hop, and people vibed to that."