News

 Kanye posted some pics today on his blog of mock-ups of his European Tour stage. Tour starts Thursday. 

Click HERE to check out Kanye's blog.

MC announces co-headlining tour on 'The View,' also talks 'American Idol.'

By Jocelyn Vena

Kanye West appeared on ABC's "The View" Wednesday (June 10) and took the opportunity to announce his forthcoming co-headlining tour with disco queen Lady Gaga.

Although he kept the details of the tour light, he spoke excitedly about it. He has said he's a Gaga fan and recently reworked her hit "Poker Face" into "I Make Her Say," a collaboration with up-and-coming MC Kid Cudi.

 "She's talented and so incredible that she's not an opening act," he said of the tour. "We're doing it together, with no opening act."

A rep for West had not provided further details to MTV News at press time, but more information is expected soon.

On the show, West also talked about Kris Allen's unexpected cover of Kanye's "Heartless" on "American Idol" earlier this year. West confessed that other artists sing the song better than he does.

"Everybody who sings the song, sings better than me," he joked to the hosts of "The View." "The Fray are one of my favorite rock bands, they covered it [too] and that song got played on 'American Idol' twice."

West credits his ability to write strong melodies as the reason artists like Allen and the Fray are able to make his songs work for them.

"I always felt like I made melodies that were [like] country or Broadway melodies."

SRC: mtv.com

Here's one for the "whatever it's worth" category....Check out Kanye's devil's food birthday cake. Oh, and no, you can't have a piece....it's all sold out. hahaha

"I'm a very, very down-to-earth person," the rapper says in a phone interview from his New York City home, downplaying much-talked about award show tantrums. "I mean, I stay in the middle of the city in New York. I'm just a very honest person with music and with supporters and at award shows. It's like I'm at war or like I'm on the court. But in real life, I'm laid-back and just want everyone to have a good time and help as many people as possible."

On Thursday he'll do just that by headlining the Kanye West Benefit Concert at The Chicago Theatre. The event will benefit the Kanye West Foundation, a charity designed to help kids stay in school. The foundation was created by West's mother, Donda, who died in 2007 after complications following plastic surgery.

"It just makes me happy that we have really great people involved that can help to keep my mother's vision of education in an innovative way alive," West says.

West is passionate about the foundation because it also promotes a music production program designed to motivate students to stay in school and graduate. It's the very thing that West, who famously titled his debut album The College Dropout, wishes he'd had. He jokes that maybe he would have stayed in school longer. (He dropped out of Chicago State University, where his mother was the English department chair.)

"I thought back to when I was in high school: I was very into music, but the equipment was really expensive and hard to get a hold of. The basketball court at school was free. Or it was free to play a violin or a drum set, but the way music on the radio is made, there was nothing in high school that helped with that," he says.

So far the West Foundation has helped 200 kids in Los Angeles learn to write music and use music studio equipment, and West hopes in the future he's able to expand his efforts.

And as for his hip-hop persona?

"When I go back to rapping," he says of the fifth studio album he's working on, "I might have to go back to war. I just might have to."

Kanye Omari West, June 8, 1977. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

'Who wouldn't want to look at Rihanna?' Nabil Elderkin asks of clip's guest star.

By Jayson Rodriguez

If anyone knows just how much Kanye West cares about his music videos, it's Nabil Elderkin. The photographer and director has been working on 'Ye's "Paranoid" video around the clock since a rough version of the clip leaked online recently.

"That wasn't even an old version," a sleep-deprived Elderkin told MTV News. "That wasn't even the video. It was just a bunch of footage, like a timeline type of thing to show the idea. That was pre-rough cut."

Elderkin said he just submitted the final version to West on Friday afternoon (May 29). The version that appeared online featured an opening with West, then guest star Rihanna appeared in a bedroom scene. Later, the singing beauty was posing onscreen with the camera centered on her, then she appeared in a car-chase type of scene. West, as one can imagine, was upset that an unfinished version leaked and took to his blog to clear things up.

"It hurts me to see the old and very wrong version of the 'Paranoid' video get leaked over the Net while I was on an 11-hour flight and couldn't do anything about it," he wrote in his characteristic all-caps style.

Elderkin has worked with West in the past, on the "Champions" video and "Welcome to Heartbreak." For this effort, the director said he initially wanted a "Clockwork Orange"-style aesthetic, but later he and 'Ye settled on an abstract, art-noir style.

"It's fantasy meets paranoid, when you get into that frame of mind and get trapped into your thoughts," Elderkin said of the video's premise. "It starts out subtle, but then it just builds. So I wanted to get that into the video, to build that into her dream sequence and get her into that paranoid state of mind."

Rihanna was cast as the lead in the video by West, Elderkin said. "That wasn't too much of a decision," he said of West's recommendation. "That was somewhere between 'hell yeah' and 'yeah.' Who wouldn't want to look at Rihanna?"

The final version of the video will be more of a narrative compared to the original idea Elderkin had. Once he began filming, some elements didn't allow for the sequencing and projections he had hoped for, so 'Ye recommended tweaks. Elderkin said West's behavior will be wolf-like in the final version, and Rihanna will be in more car scenes. West posted stills from the video on his Web site Thursday.

As of press time, it's unclear when the "Paranoid" video will debut.

Elderkin is also finishing up West's coffee-table book based on the Def Jam star's Glow in the Dark Tour last year

SRC: MTV.COM

The Jaspers (above)

The Dons (above)

I guess the video that we posted yesterday was a leaked 'uncompleted' completed version. Check out what kanye said below along with some stills.