Kanye West Announces 7-Week, 23-City North American Tour, Opening Oct. 19th in Seattle, Presented by AEG Live

NEW YORK, Sept. 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- 21-time Grammy Award®-winner (and 52-time Grammy® nominee) Kanye West will return to the road this fall for THE YEEZUS TOUR - a 23-city North American tour presented by AEG Live - in support of his gold album YEEZUS, the most critically acclaimed new album of 2013 and the 6^th consecutive #1 album of his storied career. West – a legendary live performer - combines state-of-the-art staging, production, and lighting design with his unmatched aesthetic, visionary creative mind, and an increasingly impressive catalogue of hits spanning his decade-long career. To date, Kanye West has sold over 21 Million albums and over 66 Million digital tracks worldwide.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130906/NY75356 )

The seven week tour of the U.S. and Canada will open October 19th at the KeyArena in Seattle, and conclude on December 7th at the Toyota Center in Houston.  Tickets and VIP Experiences go on sale in select markets starting Friday, September 13, details at kanyewest.com. Joining Kanye in exclusive support on THE YEEZUS TOUR will be Top Dawg Entertainment's own Kendrick Lamar, who has emerged as one of the-brightest young talents in hip-hop today. Lamar's debut album good kid, m.A.A.d city, released in October of last year, was recently certified platinum by the RIAA.

THE YEEZUS TOUR is Kanye West's first major itinerary since his WATCH THE THRONE tour with JAY Z in 2011 - the highest grossing tour in hip-hop history – and his first solo tour since 2008's critically acclaimed GLOW IN THE DARK tour. Recently, the Washington Post hailed West as "a visionary who's managed to tweak the serial rhythms that dictate so much of our pop culture diet. He doesn't do cliffhangers. He jumps off…We gasp, gawk and wonder, 'Where will he land?'"

West's recent effort YEEZUS has been hailed by critics as the album of the year; The New York Times raved "the album is one long, efficient, inventive kick in the head," while the Daily News agreed that YEEZUS was "punk in attitude, genius in execution." Rolling Stone argued the album was "a brilliant, obsessive-compulsive career auto-correct…This isn't just a way to stay ahead of the competition; it's a way to stay ahead of himself." The New Yorker echoed the sentiment, proclaiming YEEZUS as "technically breathtaking…Twenty years from now, West's previous records will remain important, but a new generation may first gravitate to the lean vibrancy of this one." USA Today weighed in with "…a polarizing, multi-layered body of work that probably will be debated all summer. Who does that besides Kanye West?" Entertainment Weekly summed things up with "Kanye West has gone rogue again. Did you expect anything less? The job of an innovator, of course, is to keep innovating… …he pushes the envelope aesthetically."

Kanye again pushed the envelope at the 30th anniversary 2013 MTV VMAs, with his visually stunning, silhouetted performance of "Blood On The Leaves," from YEEZUS.  The performance made VMA history, marking Kanye's seventh showcase at the awards spectacular, tying him with Madonna as the two artists with the most number of VMA performances.  Kanye West has delivered some of the most visually stunning and memorable - and controversial - performances in the annals of the MTV VMAs.

West now readies his powerful, innovative live performance for his first major solo tour in 5 years.

KANYE WEST'S THE YEEZUS TOUR:

Date   City  Venue     

Oct. 19 Seattle, WA  KeyArena * # 
20  Vancouver, B.C.  Pepsi Live at Rogers Arena * # 
22  San Jose, CA  SAP Center * # 
23  Oakland, CA  Oracle Arena * # 
25  Las Vegas, NV  MGM Grand Garden Arena * ^ 
26  Los Angeles, CA  STAPLES Center * # 

Nov. 1  Salt Lake City, UT  EnergySolutions Arena * # 
3  Denver, CO  Pepsi Center * # 
5  Minneapolis, MN  Target Center * # 
7  Chicago, IL  United Center * # 
10  Detroit, MI  Palace of Auburn Hills * # 
12  Toronto, Ont. Air Canada Centre * # 
14  Montreal, Que. Bell Centre # 
16  Philadelphia, PA  Wells Fargo Center ^ 
17  Boston, MA  TD Garden * # 
19  Brooklyn, NY  Barclays Center * ^ 
21  Washington, DC  Verizon Center # 
23  New York, NY  Madison Square Garden * ^ 
29  Miami, FL  AmericanAirlines Arena * # 
30  Tampa, FL  Tampa Bay Times Forum ^

Dec. 1  Atlanta, GA  Philips Arena # 
6 Dallas, TX  American Airlines Center # 
7  Houston, TX  Toyota Center #

* Tickets on sale Friday, September 13

# With Kendrick Lamar

^ Special Guest To Be Announced

ABOUT AEG LIVE (www.aeglive.com)
AEG Live, the live-entertainment division of Los Angeles-based AEG, is dedicated to all aspects of live contemporary music performance. AEG Live is comprised of touring, festival, broadcast, merchandise and special event divisions, fifteen regional offices and owns, operates or exclusively books thirty-five state-of-the-art venues. AEG Live's touring divisions of Concerts West, Atlanta Worldwide Touring, The Messina Group, AEG Live New York and Europe, and Marshall Arts consistently promotes and produces top 10 international tours. The company currently produces residency shows at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and is the exclusive promoter at The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas. AEG Live is also the largest producer of music festivals in North America from the critically acclaimed Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival to Stagecoach Country Music Festival and New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

SOURCE Def Jam