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Kanye West made his first high-profile public live appearance since his infamous stage crash at MTV’s Video Music Awards in September, surprising the crowd at Beyoncé’s concert at London’s O2 Arena by performing his verse from the “Ego” remix last night. “Give it up for Kanye West,” Beyoncé — who was the unsuspecting benefactor of West’s VMAs rant — told the crowd as the MC emerged. Crowd footage of the guest spot on YouTube indicates fans seem to have forgiven Kanye for interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech, cheering loudly for West from his opening line to his swift exit after completing the verse. Jay-Z also popped up at his wife’s London show, coming out for “Crazy in Love,” NME reports. Jay made a similar cameo when Beyoncé’s tour launched in New York.

Kanye West onstage and backstage: photos from his Glow in the Dark Tour.

While Swift has stayed in the spotlight since the VMAs, hosting Saturday Night Live and picking up CMA awards, West has kept a relatively low profile, surfacing only on The Jay Leno Show to apologize to Swift and perform “Run this Town” with Jay-Z and Rihanna. (more…)

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Kanye West’s lawyer was in a Los Angeles court today seeking the dismissal of three misdemeanor charges filed against her client stemming from a confrontation West and his manager Don Crowley had with a pack of paparazzi at Los Angeles’ LAX airport on September 11th, 2008. West and Crowley were each charged with vandalism, battery and grand theft after smashing photography equipment during the incident; all three charges were thrown out in court today pending West and Crowley’s completion of 50 hours of community service, TMZ reports. (more…)

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Anticipation for Kanye West’s collaboration with Where the Wild Things Are director and music video visionary Spike Jonze was so intense, even West himself couldn’t help but post the pair’s short film We Were Once a Fairytale when he got his hands on it a few days ago. The only problem: the clip wasn’t finished yet, and the version circulating on the Web was a leak.

“I think he was like, ‘Oh, it’s out. I’ll link to it,’ ” Jonze, who previously helmed West’s awesome “Flashing Lights” video, told the New York Times‘ Arts Beat (West yanked the video from his blog). The 12-minute tale of loneliness and isolation centers around West’s 808’s & Heartbreak song “See You In My Nightmares” and was supposed to (and will still) be distributed through iTunes.

See Jonze’s Wild Things evolve from illustrations to the big screen.

Jonze and West shot Fairytale over two days at West Hollywood club Foxtail. “We rehearsed the night before we shot, and talked about trying to get to that raw place, that sad, pathetic, drunken, lost place,” Jonze said. (more…)

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Speculation as to why Lady Gaga and Kanye West’s “Fame Kills” tour was killed has begun, and TMZ has already shot out a few theories that start with sluggish early numbers. Ticket sales “sucked,” to point where ” ’sucked’ happens to be a nicer version of the word,” TMZ writes, adding Gaga’s and West’s people were allegedly “at each others throats like their last names were Gosselin” and that Gaga reportedly wanted to bring The Fame Monster and her steady rotation of outrageous outfits to smaller venues than the hockey arenas the tour planned on playing. The official word from Lady Gaga, though, is it was a “mutual decision,” Billboard reports. Gaga said West is going to take time off, and she’ll be embarking on a solo jaunt in several weeks.

See Lady Gaga’s wildest looks.

Considering Kanye’s “Glow in the Dark” tour was sold out and Gaga’s star is on the rise, it’s hard to believe ticket sales were that poor. However, in the case of the “Fame Kills” stop at New York’s Nassau Coliseum, plenty of general admission tickets were still available hours after they went on presale. In fact, Ticketmaster’s listing for the Nassau Coliseum show is still active, and GA tickets are widely available. (more…)

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Just two weeks after Kanye West and Lady Gaga announced their full slate of “Fame Kills” dates, the tour has been canceled. No official reason has been given for the cancellation, but ticket refunds will be available.

See Lady Gaga’s wildest looks.

After the backlash surrounding Kanye’s outburst during Taylor Swift’s VMAs acceptance speech, the tour was rumored to be embattled. Now official confirmation of the cancellation comes from concert promoters Live Nation.

See Kanye’s stage invasion and other memorable moments from this year’s VMAs.

But Gaga isn’t letting this slow down her collaborations with rappers. Just yesterday, she hinted at the possibility of recording with Dr. Dre.

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Before he popped into Perez Hilton’s “One Night in Austin” extravaganza for a quickie five-song set, Kanye West made a not-so-secret SXSW appearance at the Levi’s/Fader Fort on Saturday night, turning a label showcase for his G.O.O.D. Records imprint into a cohesive, star-studded, two-hour event. Special guests like Common, Erykah Badu, Fonzworth Bentley and 88 Keys all showed up to support. Although West did break out tons of hits (”Heartless,” “Diamonds Are Forever,” “Good Life”), he was clearly playing the role of an enthusiastic label manager. He told a long story about how he signed rapper Big Sean, said Canadian Sting soundalike Mr. Hudson will be playing 50,000-seat stadiums, and was sure to mention that he’s back in the studio with Common. People looking for West’s classic ego trips would have to wait for the next show — save maybe the defensive retort, “I do do my own blogs.”

(For photos live from SXSW, check out our gallery.)

West emerged at the top of the set wearing an outfit more in tune with one of the underground metal shows at Red 7: a gold bullet necklace, black sunglasses and a sleeveless denim vest. After his seven-piece band slayed a decidedly heavy version of 808s and Heartbreak’s “Amazing,” West stayed onstage as his label roster cycled through their latest singles and their Kanye catalog guest spots. Longtime G.O.O.D. rapper Consequence was there for 2005’s “Gone,” GLC helped out with 2004’s “Spaceship” and Really Doe was there for “We Major.” Embracing the family atmosphere, these four rappers ducked in and out of songs, finishing each others’ lines. When they went solo, like for Big Sean’s latest single “Getcha Some,” West watched from the wings like a proud father. Although West might have been too relaxed around his family, as he regularly forgot the words to his own songs. “Crack Music” ended prematurely (”That’s all I remember!”) and his “Diamonds Are Forever” turned a fumble into a freestyle (”South by Southwest… It comes off the top and it feels the best”). (more…)

Kanye West’s Twitter, a catalyst in the iTunes sales war between the rapper and Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert, allegedly isn’t even West’s own Twitter account. Taking to his blog this weekend, West posted “I don’t know anything about this…This is not me!!!” and posted an image of the faux-Twitter account, which asked the question “Who the fuck is Stephen Colbert” in the hours following Colbert’s launch of “Operation Humble Kanye.” The Kanye West Twitter page has since been taken down. (more…)

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MySpace Music continues to stream entire albums before their release date, unleashing Kanye West’s full 808s & Heartbreak three days before it goes on sale on November 24th. According to MySpace’s fancy artwork they made for the occasion, the album is incorrectly entitled 808s and Heartbreaks, but we’ll cut the new music service some slack since they’re letting everyone listen to the album early. 808s will be hard-pressed to repeat the massive success Guns n’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy album stream had yesterday on the site. According to NME, Axl Rose’s MySpace page lured over 3 million listens yesterday, with the title track single-handedly played over 826,000 times. MySpace Music wouldn’t confirm any figures. (more…)

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“Heartless,” the second official single from Kanye West’s upcoming 808s & Heartbreak, was officially released to iTunes today. The cover is similar to the 808s cover with its gray slate background and font, however the shriveled heart balloon is noticeably absent. It’s “heartless,” get it? A music video for “Heartless” is expected out shortly. As it seems to go in the hip-hop world, the same day we get an officially released 808s track, another has leaked. Meet “Anyway,” West’s collaboration with Cleveland rapper Kid Cudi. (more…)

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Kanye West knows one way to make guests pay attention at an album listening party: a room full of live nude women, standing and posing in silhouette against a wall of bright colored light in a performance designed by artist Vanessa Beecroft. That was the scene in a Los Angeles loft Tuesday night, as West unveiled his brooding, emotional 808s & Heartbreak album, set for release November 25.

More than 700 invited guests watched and listened as Beecroft’s 40 models slowly changed position with each song, some of them wearing fuzzy wigs that covered their faces. Just as provocative were West’s new tracks, including the singles “Love Lockdown” and “Heartless,” mostly obsessed with romantic pain and loss. All vocals were sung and treated with the electro “auto-tune” effect. But there was no rapping or overt sampling, just emotional waves of electronic sound, beats and occasional strings.

“You want to tell your friends you’re leaving me,” Wests sings on one stormy, lovesick track. “You’ll never find nobody better than me.” Later, his voice is wounded as he surrenders, “Goodbye, my friend. Will I ever love again?”

When the album was over, West grabbed a microphone and stood beside Beecroft’s models and called 808s & Heartbreak a very personal project. (more…)

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Kanye West premiered his new video for “Love Lockdown” today on Ellen. Like the three “Flashing Lights” videos before it, “Lockdown” makes for a strange viewing, with a despondent West loafing around depressed in a white room surrounded by a bunch of African tribes and 15-foot women covered in Day-Glo paint. That’s essentially the plot. At the halfway mark, a spaceship inexplicably makes an appearance, but the highlight of the whole thing is at the 1:09 when the guy with the spear breaks through the aspect ratio for a too-brief 3D feel. Still, the weirdest part this whole thing is that West premiered this clip on Ellen DeGeneres’ show — maybe we can look forward to premiere of the “Heartless” video on The View. (more…)

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Kanye West took the stage at a T.I. concert this weekend in Los Angeles to perform a pair of new songs and announce that his new album 808s & Heartbreak will be out on November 25th. 808s was originally slated for a December release, but West pushed up the date to the tentative “November Something.” “I just pushed my album up to November 25th. Can I sing y’all my second single?” West asked the crowd before launching into “Heartless.” West also performed “Love Lockdown” at T.I.’s MySpace show. (more…)

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Kanye West has taken a page from the Radiohead playbook by offering up his new single “Love Lockdown” in isolated song stems to allow fans to remix the 808s & Heartbreak track. But whereas Radiohead charged 99 cents for each stem, West has posted all of them for free over at his blog. As of now, there’s no contest aligning itself with the remixes — it’s just for recreational purposes to keep you occupied while you wait for the release of 808s on “November something.”

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Yesterday, we told you about Kayne West’s Comedy Central puppet show Alligator Boots. A minute-long clip from the pilot emerged today, giving us a brief but hilarious preview at the show being touted as “The Muppet Show meets hip-hop.” In the clip, the puppet rapper — who looks like a Muppetized version of Digital Underground’s Shock G — tells the story of Apple Bottom Jeans-wearing female puppets who bring their baby puppets to the puppet club with them. There are also verses about backstage breast-feeding and a baby seat in the Hummer. The script doesn’t require much from Kanye, so the rapper just does his part to look cool standing in a fake night club located somewhere on Sesame Street. Comedy Central is reportedly gunning for a 2009 debut for the series. (more…)

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Kanye West, Comedy Central and the producers of Crank Yankers are joining forces on a new puppet-centric television series tentatively called Alligator Boots. Whereas Yankers features puppets making crank calls, Boots will feature felt characters rapping. The series will feature music produced and performed by West and his protégé Rhymefest. Somehow West found time within his busy 808s & Heartbreak schedule to serve as host on the already-filmed pilot episode. If the show were to be picked up — they’re aiming for 2009 — there would be a different celebrity host every episode, much like the original Muppet Show. (more…)