kanye West is arrested at LAX airport !!?? ....

LOS ANGELES - Rapper Kanye West and his road manager were arrested this morning at Los Angeles International Airport on suspicion of felony vandalism after they confronted two paparazzi and smashed the men's cameras, authorities said.

The incident took place about 7:50 a.m. outside the passenger security screening area in Terminal 4, said LAX spokeswoman Nancy Castles.

Initial reports said the incident involved "a commercial photographer, 'paparazzi' " and a camera worth more than $10,000, according to Castles.

Airport police said the confrontation started when a videographer from TMZ, the celebrity gossip website, and a still photographer from a paparazzi agency approached West and his road manager, Don Crawley, on the curb outside the terminal. West and Crawley were arriving at the airport for a commercial flight to Honolulu, officials said.

[Authorities initially incorrectly gave Crawley's last name as Crowley.]

At least part of the incident was by a TMZ cameraman who was at the airport. The video clip was posted to TMZ.com this morning.

In the video, West and Crawley are shown yelling at the paparazzi and struggling with the still photographer for his camera and its flash before slamming it to the ground. At that point, as the TMZ videographer continues to shoot, Crawley appears to grab at the video camera.

West, 31, was arrested by airport police at 8:45 a.m. and taken to the LAPD's Pacific Division station, where he was booked shortly after 11 a.m., according to jail records. Crawley, 32, was booked about 15 minutes earlier. Bail for each man was listed as $20,000.

Prior to today's incident, there are no reports of West having previous altercations with the law.

In addition to the vandalism allegation, authorities initially said they had arrested Crawley on suspicion of battery but said later that a preliminary investigation determined no battery had occurred.

"There's no battery. We have a property crime, that's it," said Sgt. Jim Holcomb of the Los Angeles Airport Police.

The incident caused delays of about 15 to 20 minutes for passengers waiting to get through security. People waiting in line could see West, who was wearing a hooded sweat shirt, standing nearby with about 10 police officers.

A security guard told those waiting that there had been a loud argument between West and photographers.

A representative for West's record label, Island Def Jam, declined to comment on the incident this morning.

On Sunday, West -- who rose to fame on the success of his 2004 debut album, "The College Dropout," -- debuted his new single "Love Lockdown" at the MTV Music Video Awards.

Even in rap, which is dominated by brash stars, West is a known for his flashes of temper. He stormed out of the American Music Awards in 2004 when he did not win the trophy for best new artist and later went on a rant to reporters about a conspiracy against him.

During a telethon to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, West said: "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

In 2006, West barged onstage at the MTV Europe Awards during the acceptance speech by another act and again protested that he had been wronged by voters. He has also gone after music critics and publications that have, in his opinion, undervalued his work.

Last year, for instance, he published an R-rated rant on his blog taking Entertainment Weekly to task for daring to give his concert tour a B+ rating in its review.

West has said he enjoys the role of provocative artist, telling Rolling Stone -- when he appeared on that magazine's cover wearing a crown of thorns -- "If I was more complacent and I let things slide, my life would be easier, but you all wouldn't be as entertained. My misery is your pleasure."

His mother, Donda West, 58, died late last year after undergoing cosmetic surgery, in a case that drew scrutiny of the surgeon who performed the procedures.

West, who has said little publicly about her death, gave a moving performance of his song "Hey Mama" during this year's Grammy ceremony in February.

HE HAS A NEW ALBUM COMING OUT SOON (IM JUST SAYING) LOL

J-Kwon put St. Louis on the map for having the 1st hood sound and video with Hood Hop. He even had Nelly on his album which is like impossible for a St. Louis artist to acheive. He was on the cover of the Source. He has done some hot songs. Now the way this story came to me, God must meant for me to do it. It all started from talking to a female I know, that I was talking to on MySpace.com. She told me how she was talking to the real J-Kwon on myspace. I brushed it off, until I talked to another female who shared the same experience with some negative feedback she shared. The way they met and the conversations they had were exactly the same. It soon builded to 6 females with the same experience. They all held conversations and some even going to meet J-Kwon. The thing that made their stories link was the infamous email address bhoodhop@gmail.com . I talked to alot of women that were sending him naked pictures of themselves to J-Kwon. He often requested pictures after he had sex with these females. I started doing my own research and contacting some of the people on his friends lists. This is where the monster was unleashed.

It appears from what I learned J-Kwon was dropped from So So Def, and put on the shelf at Jive Records. Then he started making a comeback that came to a crash and burn. From all the females I interviewed, J-Kwon was using everyone he met online or in person. He had females doing banners for him , advertisements, driving him around, and running errands for him. The females thought they were either being a friend or getting into a relationship with J-Kwon. Most of the women turn and ran the other direction as soon as he started asking to borrow money. Then this research became sort of personal I knew some of the people that were working for or with J-Kwon. I knew certain Djs that were playing his new songs, I knew some of the people helping promote his comeback. So I dug even deeper.

I found out J-Kwon wasn't paying anyone. He didn't pay his barber, his PR people, his artists, his producers, his managers, no one was getting paid. From what I was told by several J-Kwon ex-women BD Caldwell is the famous manager that launched his career and even he is owed money and O.G. Kanecc got him several deals and J-Kwon did not follow thru on them. I'm not really sure who his manager is the names, BD, Kanecc, Carl the barber, and Surge came up alot in conversations. I have confirmation that 2 of these names are no longer manager or left the label Hood Hop, which leaves Carl the barber and Surge. From what was relayed to me Carl is a barber in St. Louis. (I don't know what shop and possible the same barber that he owes money to) and Surge is a guy from New York that was setting up J-Kwon shows. Radio stations were asking for interviews and J-Kwon was not showing up or making the calls that he was suppose to do. There were several photographers I talked to that said he argued over money they were owed. He didn't want to pay up, he rather go on the boat and go gamble. That is not it! Now that was just from a small group of people. Then there are the unsigned artists. He signed an artist from St. Louis that is hot named RAH RAH MONEY, but J-Kwon did not invest any money in him. Then he has a cousin by the name of D-MAN that is hot, but no money invested in him. So from the information I gathered J-Kwon was on MYSPACE.COM selling a fake dream to all the unsigned artists he could find. He was taking their music and trying to get deals so he could eat off the artists. Then it turned into him taking songs from artists and taking tracks. Then he was selling false dreams to singers and pop acts. He was taking tracks from producers and not paying a dime for them. One by one people started leaving his camp because they were not paid. His security gone. His crew that were waiting around for deals started leaving to go find jobs. No one was getting paid for the work they did to promote him. As I was told by several very angry women and men, "HE RATHER SPEND HIS MONEY ON SNORTING COKE, THAN PAY ANYONE!". Oh No! not another coke-head! Yes! Now even I said no to this I didn't believe it, but one particular female that frequent his apartment(yes apartment) said she would often find coke on the tables with a credit card nearby to chop it up. She said he had a lot of white friends that would buy the coke for him. Most of the women said he would refer to them as a sister or cousin, so they knew he was using this term to hide them from a potential girlfriend. Yes he had or has a girlfriend he lives with while he goes and creeps with these women.

From Hot 104 to 100.3 the Beat, i found Djs that had bad run in's with J-Kwon. I heard Shorty Da Kid, Kaos, Dj Oatmeal,Dj Krisstyles and Huey all have beef with him as well. I heard his artist RAH RAH MONEY did the smart thing and left to another label. I put on my life jacket and dug deeper and hit my peoples at Jive and So So Def. On the surface no one would say anything bad upfront, but the message I got was, we don't $%^ with that drug addict kid. I assume JD wiped his hands clean of him, and Trackboys did the same. My purpose for this story was not to bash J-Kwon, but to show up and coming artists there is someone always out there looking to use you. From fake music conferences to fake dj retreats there is always someone trying to take your hard earned money. For the last part of the story I tried to contact some of the known people for their input, but they either refuse to comment, or sticking to the G code, or whatever, but I guess I should add the disclaimer the names I did mention did not participate in the blog, and/ or I did not get a statement from them. The names I do mention are well known names in St. Louis, Mo and in the music Industry.

Update: I could not reach J-Kwon for a comment because he is currently locked up for unpaid child support. What a twist to the story. I did look more on J-Kwon's myspace page and found a manager by the name of Gordon Pannell for Premier Management. No response from him or his company.

Hip Hop's finest!
Get It Magazine