Kanye West announces ‘Yeezus’ tour with Kendrick Lamar

theGRIO REPORT - Coming off the success of his controversial, but critically acclaimed 8th album, Yeezus, Kanye West will be taking his talents across the country...

Kyle Harvey

Sep 6, 2013

Coming off the success of his controversial but critically acclaimed eighth album, Yeezus, Kanye West will be taking his talents across the country.

The Chicago emcee announced he will begin a nationwide tour next month of nearly 25 cities. It will be his first solo tour in five years.

Here is the official press release e-mailed to theGrio.com from Def Jam Recordings:

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.”