Hong Kong hip hop fans who are excited about Kanye West's headline gig at this summer's Fuji Rock festival, we hope you didn't already buy your tickets or book your flights because Ye has cancelled his performance and, with that, goes any chance of West stopping by Hong Kong. Local entertainment entrepreneur Kevin Poon, who helped organise West's 2006 Hong Kong gig, had told us he was emailing Kanye's people about a potential stop here. While Fuji Rock's website gave a generic "due to artist circumstances" as explanation, Live Nation, which is handling West's Australian dates that were also affected, explained that West wanted time to finish his next album, which is due to hit later this year. Also, unlike Live Nation, Fuji Rock is refusing to grant refunds, so those who bought tickets solely on West's star power alone, you're out of luck. But, hey, there's still Outkast.
This is just a week of cancellation news. The "King of Wrestling" event organised by the Hong Kong Pro Wrestling Federation (this is not real grappling wrestling, but the staged WWE kind), which was supposed to take place in June at the Youth Outreach in Sai Wan Ho, has been cancelled. The federation's founder, Ho Ho-lun, told us that the venue took back the dates reserved without notice. But he takes responsibility: "I should have paid the deposit first, it's kind of my fault…"
Ho says the HKWF will try to find a venue in Shek Kip Mei, but as of now, the show is off.
The recently "uncoupled" Gwyneth Paltrow will be in town on April 23 at the Landmark for a book signing. The Hollywood star released the healthy cookbook It's All Good earlier this month.
Beijing indie rockers Carsick Cars cancelled their Zhengzhou and Xinxiang dates on Sunday and yesterday due to an arm injury to frontman/guitarist Zhang Shouwang. But local music promoter and friend of the band, Kap Liu, tells us their gig at Hidden Agenda this Sunday is still on. "It's just an arm strain injury — he'll be healed by then," Liu says. In other tidbits…Fresh Off The Boat Asia celebrates its first birthday this Saturday at the W Hotel's Woo Bar. The line-up will be headlined by American rapper and poet Mykki Blanco. FOB owner Zaran Vachha also tells us that he'll be bringing British hip hopper Ms Dynamite and French DJ and producer Breakbot (part of the Ed Banger Crew) to Hong Kong — the former will perform at Fly on April 25; Breakbot will play at Volar on May 1.