im not into that style at all. as far as the kanye "biting" thing goes..

thats seems to me like the sense of his own hype is greater than his sense of history.
grand master flash was doing stuff live on the drum machine in 1979!
theres a video of jazzy jeff at the the grammys in the 80's with his turntables and mpc 60
peanut butter wolf did a track on his '97 album where he plays the mpc live
theres loads of others too(shadow,jel, jeremy ellis etc)
but finally Roger Linn in the mpc300 manual:
"In this light, I like to think of the MPC3000 as the piano or violin of
our time, and of you as an MPC3000ist ....As an MPC3000ist, if you find the instrument
useful in your creative process, please let the world know. Next time
you perform on a recording, ask to be credited not with, “Keyboards
played by...” or “Programming by...” but rather with, “MPC3000
played by....”