Fame Kills: Starring Kanye West and Lady Gaga was a planned co-headlining concert tour by American record producer and vocalist Kanye West, and singer Lady Gaga. For the tour, which would have supported West's fourth album 808s & Heartbreak (2008) and Gaga's The Fame Monster EP (2009), the pair conceived a production that would unite their different musical audiences. The tour was scheduled to run from November 2009 to January 2010, but was canceled after public controversy regarding West's interruption of Taylor Swift's Best Female Video speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Shortly after the cancellation, Gaga embarked on her own tour, The Monster Ball Tour, while West went on to make his album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, released on November 22, 2010.
Background and development
In June 2009, Kanye West announced on The View he would be touring with Lady Gaga, but she would not perform as an opening act. "She's talented and so incredible that she's not an opening act", he said. "We're doing it together, with no opening act." In August, Gaga expressed her belief that the tour would be "one of the most groundbreaking moments in touring history." Before the singer agreed to collaborate with West, she demanded that the tour would remain accessible to her gay fans. "I'm gay", she recalled telling West in an interview with Out magazine, "my music is gay. My show is gay. And I love that it's gay. And I love my gay fans and they're all going to be coming to our show. And it's going to remain gay."
The tour's stage was designed by Gaga and West as a traverse; "Instead of being on just one end of the arena, the stage traverses the entire arena", Gaga noted. "It's not really in-the-round; it's more of a runway." The concept of the tour was to feature the performers on opposite ends of the stage, with Gaga's end representing "home and humble beginnings" and West's end representing "the fame", with the two fighting for each other's positions throughout the show. West would perform his singles, Gaga would perform hers, and then the duo would perform several duets.
Gaga said she enjoyed designing Fame Kills with West, calling themselves "creative kindreds." She explained that they did not plan to tour for themselves, but rather for "everybody else"; the goal of the tour would have been to bring two different groups of fans and music enthusiasts together. "I make pop music and Kanye's fans love pop music because he has changed what hip-hop means", she said. "For me, the tour is more about just bringing people together and having a big dance party. The show is a celebration of creativity, art, fashion and choreography." She also noted that West showed her a lot during the creative planning of the show, such as one instance where Gaga wanted to put side panels on the stage that would have obstructed the view for some fans. "He was like, 'I'm not selling a ticket to a fan who can't see the show,' and he's right", she said.
A promotional video for the tour was released in September 2009. West posted the video on his blog accompanied by the text, "What happened to all the rock stars? The fame killed them!" The 30-second clip features slow-motion footage of a topless Gaga being carried by a man presumed to be West. Daniel Kreps from Rolling Stone described it as "soft 70s porn", while adding that he had "no idea what [the text in the video] has to do with the 30-second clip, but we're sure it'll start to make more sense as more promos roll out as we approach the tour's launch." At Gaga's Fame Ball tour, she sang a short piano version of West's "Heartless".
Cancellation
Following singer Taylor Swift's win for the music video "You Belong with Me" at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Female Video, West stormed the stage, grabbed Swift's microphone, and declared that singer Beyoncé deserved the award for her "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" video. He declared, "Yo, Taylor, I'm really happy for you, I'mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time!" West was profusely criticized by celebrities and fans alike over the incident. Following the interruption, the status of Fame Kills was rumored to be in question. A representative from a US urban radio station commented: "I think this could potentially affect his upcoming tour with Lady Gaga. This isn't an urban tour — urban audiences can be a bit more forgiving than mainstream audiences are. I can see him going on stage and people booing him. It's unfortunate." Less than a week after the ticket sales began, the tour was canceled but no reason was given.
Various rumors circulated as to why the tour was canceled. It was suspected that it was canceled due to poor ticket sales, feuding between Gaga and West's management teams, and Gaga's desire to play in smaller venues. Gaga's choreographer, Laurieann Gibson, said the tour was terminated due to "creative differences" between the singers. Gaga claimed that the cancellation was a mutual decision, and added that she would soon embark on her own headlining tour The Monster Ball Tour in the coming weeks, while West would be taking a break from his career. In contrast, West claimed in 2016 that Gaga had made the decision to cancel the tour following the fallout from his MTV VMAs incident.
Gaga was scheduled to begin The Monster Ball Tour in March 2010, but following the cancellation of Fame Kills, The Monster Ball Tour began in November 2009. Gaga said that while she was inspired by what she and West had planned to do with the Fame Kills tour, she decided not to use any of the ideas and concepts they created together, citing integrity.
Scheduled tour dates All tour dates were canceled.
+ List of concerts, showing date, city, country and venue Date City Country Venue November 10, 2009 PhoenixUnited States US Airways Center November 11, 2009 San Diego San Diego Sports Arena November 13, 2009 Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Events Center November 15, 2009 Anaheim Honda Center November 16, 2009 Los Angeles Staples Center November 18, 2009 Sacramento ARCO Arena November 19, 2009 San Jose HP Pavilion at San Jose November 24, 2009 VancouverCanada General Motors Place November 26, 2009 Calgary Pengrowth Saddledome November 28, 2009 Edmonton Rexall Place November 29, 2009 Saskatoon Credit Union Centre December 2, 2009 DenverUnited States Pepsi Center December 4, 2009 St. Louis Scottrade Center December 9, 2009 Miami American Airlines Arena December 11, 2009 Atlanta Philips Arena December 12, 2009 Greensboro Greensboro Coliseum December 13, 2009 Norfolk Norfolk Scope December 16, 2009 Worcester DCU Center December 18, 2009 Philadelphia Wachovia Center December 19, 2009 Baltimore 1st Mariner Arena December 20, 2009 Buffalo HSBC Arena December 22, 2009 East Rutherford Izod Center December 26, 2009 Hartford XL Center December 30, 2009 Washington, D.C. Verizon Center January 3, 2010 Uniondale Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum January 6, 2010 TorontoCanada Air Canada Centre January 8, 2010 Ottawa Scotiabank Place January 11, 2010 Montreal Bell Centre January 14, 2010 Auburn HillsUnited States The Palace of Auburn Hills January 16, 2010 Chicago United Center January 19, 2010 New Orleans New Orleans Arena January 21, 2010 San Antonio AT&T Center January 22, 2010 Houston Toyota Center January 24, 2010 Dallas American Airlines Center
References