On Thursday night (November 12), Jay-Z unleashed his Blueprint tour on the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois. With the help of Wale and N.E.R.D., Jigga invaded Assembly Hall (home of the University of Illinois basketball team) and tore through hits both new ("Run This Town," "Empire State of Mind") and old ("99 Problems," "Big Pimpin'").

"Rising from below the stage, Jay-Z performed 'Run This Town' to open the show," wrote April Dahlquist in the Daily Illini. "In black pants, an Abraham Lincoln graphic tee, ice, a Yankees hat and 'sunnies,' 39-year-old Jay-Z was dressed to impress.

"And the Jay-Z song was on," she continued. "Whether the fans knew every word to the rap song, or just nodded their heads to the beat, from the constant screams and camera flashes, it was apparent the audience was enjoying themselves."

Jigga's comprehensive crawl across some of the country's biggest college campuses tonight at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. The acclaimed Blueprint tour has brought out the road warrior in Jay-Z, who will keep arena-hopping until Thanksgiving. He'll then head back out on the road in February of next year for another 14 dates, culminating in what will likely be a triumphant tour closer at Los Angeles' Staples Center.

From taking the Staten Island Ferry out to Governors Island for the first time to seeing Asher Roth and N.E.R.D. play an awesome outdoor concert in front of a couple hundred people to chopping it up with Santigold, Mary J. Blige and Pharrell Williams, these last couple days have been non-stop.

Today was the big MTV Video Music Awards media forum at Radio City Music Hall, an annual event where the country's top radio stations all converge in a huge makeshift media room in the basement of the legendary venue.

Sway, who is an old pro at doing radio both as the host and the interviewee, offered me some sound advice as we braved the rain and walked a few blocks from the MTV News headquarters in Times Square to Radio City. "Just do you!" he said, sounding a little Nike commercial-esque. But then again, he does know best.

The room was a maze of tables operating as temporary radio stations, with all the artists moving from interview to interview. Kid Cudi, Ryan Leslie, Fabolous, Raekwon, Jay Sean, Wale, Melody from the Pussycat Dolls, DJ Cassidy, Twista and a whole host of others were all hard at work talking VMAs, new projects and — in the case of the Las Vegas stations — downing shots of tequila as well. That's just how they do it in Vegas.

From Detroit to Philadelphia, I spoke with as many radio shows that would have me, and the everyone wanted to know three things: What's Lady Gaga going to be wearing, is Madonna going to introduce Janet Jackson's tribute to Michael and will Eminem be a surprise performer? My lips are sealed! But if you tune in Sunday at 8 p.m., you're certain to find out!

U2 may have one of the biggest tour stages of all time, but it doesn't look nearly as cool as Kanye West's newest construction. The rapper launches a European tour tomorrow, and he's bringing along a sci-fi set that looks like it has borrowed a lot from the pyramid his friends in Daft Punk used a few years ago.

West has always been a performance-minded MC, but his last few tours have really added visual flair. His Glow in the Dark Tour was a watershed trek that not only featured N.E.R.D., Rihanna and Lupe Fiasco but also Kanye telling a narrative story on a set that looked like an alien planet. The new set looks like the inside of a crystal from the future, complete with massive video screen and what promises to be a complex light show.

West's tour begins tomorrow night in Denmark, then moves on to France, the U.K. and Switzerland. In addition to promoting 808s & Heartbreak and his new book, he's been working with a number of other up-and-coming artists, including Mr. Hudson and Drake.

Katy Perry, Estelle, Robyn, Tokio Hotel and N.E.R.D. have joined forces with H&M for the clothing store's Fashion Against AIDS annual charity clothing line. Each musician has collaborated with the brand and designed a piece of clothing with a personal safe-sex slogan printed on it.

Katy's message reads, "It's what's on the outside that counts," while Estelle's says, "Life is too short — have sex be safe." In addition to music newbies, such legends as Cyndi Lauper and Yoko Ono designed clothing with slogans like, "Girls just wanna have safe sex" and "Imagine peace."

(Check out Tokio Hotel and Dita Von Teese's shirts, after the jump!)
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We've chronicled presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama's cool iPod picks, and his love of Jay-Z, Bob Dylan and Wilco, but could the potential next leader of the free world be sharing a stage with Kanye in a couple of weeks? According to the Daily Swarm, Obama has left a schedule slot open during the first weekend in August, which happens to be the same weekend Lollapalooza descends on his hometown.

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By Jordan Upmalis

Lupe Fiasco had plenty to talk about this week on the set of the video shoot for the remix of N.E.R.D.'s "Everyone Nose" — except on the topic of what he was actually there for.

"What are you talking about?" he asked quite seriously, while standing outside of the studio. "What remix? Remix to what? 'Everyone Nose,' that's the N.E.R.D. record. ... It's a remix? Who's on it?"

It's OK. Lupe has a lot on his plate. Fresh from playing shows in London, he's spent much of the year on the road with Kanye's Glow in the Dark Tour (which he described as real good). "I was kickin' it with N.E.R.D., Rihanna, Chris Brown and Kanye. It was love."

He also recently received a gold plaque for his second album, The Cool. But Fiasco isn't just a one-trick pony. He had much to discuss about expanding his empire — musically and otherwise.

So what's on Lupe's agenda?
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If you're anything like me (and seriously, I hope you're not), then you have hundreds, perhaps thousands, or even tens of thousands of songs in your iTunes that look something like "Song 01" or claim to be by a band called "the Nerds" (actually N.E.R.D.).

Whether you ripped them from a CD, downloaded them from a blog or got them from a friend's hard drive, these mislabeled songs or artist names are almost impossible to search for and disturb the natural order of digital things. Enter TuneUp, a new company whose tagline is "Your Music's New Best Friend."

Aside from its cool retro rocket-man logo, the service offers nothing short of a complete overhaul of your iTunes library. Using their plug-in application, TuneUp can go into your iTunes and clean up all (or most) of the mislabeled items, automatically search for cover art, tell you if you're missing other songs from a particular album, suggest relevant YouTube videos, Google News and eBay merchandise tied to the song currently playing, and offer automatic concert alerts based on your collection, with the option to purchase tickets directly through TuneUp.

The service grabs an "audio fingerprint" of each song and within a few seconds retrieves the correct data from the Global Media Database belonging to Gracenote (the same company that identifies songs when you put a disc into your hard drive, and where founder Gabe Adiv — a friend of this writer — used to work).

The company claims their correction rate is around 85-90 percent. The service, which costs $12 a year or $20 for a lifetime subscription, only works for Windows at the moment, but a Mac version is slated to be released this fall. A free demo version is currently available that cleans 500 songs and 50 pieces of cover art.

· Of course, Oprah Winfrey would come in at #1, as usual, but some young turks made the annual Forbes magazine Celebrity 100 power list as well: Beyoncé is at #4; hubby Jay-Z follows at #7; Justin Timberlake made it to #12 (his pal Madonna is #21); #26 50 Cent edged out #27 Kanye West; Miley Cyrus came in at #35; Alicia Keys hit #65; the Jonas Brothers locked in #89; and Lauren Conrad just made the cut at #97.

· That ain't right! N.E.R.D. mastermind Pharrell Williams recently admitted that he made Madonna "cry like a baby" during the heated sessions for her Hard Candy album.

· The memoir from Britney's mom, Lynne Spears, that was on and then off a few months ago is back on. Now that Brit has begun working on her personal issues and Jamie Lynn is about to give birth to her first child, the book is being eyed for a September release.

· We get that "production issues" caused Coldplay to reshuffle their U.S. tour dates. But M.I.A. has cited a novel issue behind the cancellation of her European tour: "losing a sense of ... reality."

· A sexual-harassment lawsuit was filed Wednesday against New York radio personality Wendy Williams, claiming that the "Wendy Williams Experience" host's husband repeatedly propositioned an employee at the station and physically abused Williams in the workplace.

· We already knew "Hairspray" star Nikki Blonsky could sing, so naturally she's prepping her debut album, which she'll co-write. What will it sound like? She says a mix of Stevie Nicks, Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow.

· Remy Ma might be behind bars, but that's not stopping her from releasing a new mixtape. The 17-song BlasRemy tape will contain verses from her fiancee, Papoose, as well as Chingy, Jackie-O and Shawnna.

· One good cover deserves another. After Gnarls Barkley did a take on the Violent Femmes' "Gone Daddy Gone" on their St. Elsewhere album, the veteran indie-rock band has decided to record their own version of Gnarls' smash "Crazy." Available on limited-edition blue vinyl, no less.

· The Black Eyed Peas are set to perform today for about 700 people in Shanghai to support Red Cross relief efforts for victims of the recent earthquake in China.

· N.E.R.D., Death Cab For Cutie, the Ting Tings, and Lightspeed Champion are among the acts lined up for the second iTunes Live series.

· One of Jim Jones’ bodyguards was arrested on Sunday after a skirmish between police and the rapper’s entourage at Hot 97’s Summer Jam show at Giants Stadium.

· Rage Against the Machine took the stage dressed as hooded, orange jumpsuit-wearing prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detainee prison camp on Sunday during an appearance at the Pinkpop Festival.

So you're telling us that Pharrell can produce Madonna, sing the hook on another hit record, get ready to drop the new N.E.R.D. album...and get home in time to design furniture??

What have we been doing with our free time?

Oh, and it's called the "perspective" chair. For some reason.

Thanks to Kanye's always excellent blog for pointing this out. 'Ye also recently posted some ridiculous Chinese fashion pics that are totally in line with the spooky aesthetic trip he's been on lately...