Kanye West Arrested Again

11/14/08 2:37pm

by Jen White (CHARTattack)

Kanye West just can't keep his hands off paparazzi.

The rapper was arrested late Thursday night after allegedly assaulting photographer Terry Blackburn outside of Tup Tup Palace nightclub in Newcastle, England.

The photog claims that he suffered cuts and bruises after West pushed his camera into his face and shouted, "Get the fucking camera off him!"

TMZ reports that the rapper got pissed off when Blackburn started snapping shots of him leaving the club with four ladies.

West, who's in the U.K. with his Glow In The Dark tour, was arrested by Northumberland police, but was released after a short investigation. (Pretty lucky with those nine lives, aren't ya, Kanye?)

"He was released without charge and there will be no further police action taken," a Northumberland police spokesman told the U.K.'s Times newspaper.

TMZ also says the person alleging the assault made the same claim against a famous British soccer player last month, and those charges were also unfounded.

The arrest comes on the heels of West announcing that he's (ahem) the Michael Jordan of music.

"I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice," he told The Associated Press. "It's me settling into that position of just really accepting that it's one thing to say you want to do it and it's another thing to really end up being like Michael Jordan."

West also singled out Justin Timberlake, saying he had a chance to be one of music's MVPs, but has instead been lazy.

"There were people who had the potential to do it but they went on vacation. So when Justin went on vacation, I made albums."

West also called out Jared Leto and his band 30 Seconds To Mars earlier this week for winning an MTV Europe Music Award, but he's since apologized for the comments.

"I wanna apologize 2 Jared Leto for fronting on him," Kanye wrote in a Nov. 13 blog post. "I read my quote on Perez and was like damn that was wack of me. I've actually posted his vids on my blog that had incredible cinematography. He actually covered one of my songs.

"Like they said on Anchorman... You eat shit Ron Burgandy! Yes, I eat shit for that one."

It seems like West ate a vocoder while working on 808s And Heartbreak, his follow-up to 2007's Graduation. The Auto-Tuned album features guest appearances from Young Jeezy ("Amazing") and Lil Wayne ("Tell Everybody That You Know"). It'll hit stores on Nov. 24.

Here's what's on 808s & Heartbreak:

"Welcome To Heartbreak"
"Heartless"
"Love Lockdown"
"Robocop"
"Anyway"
"Streetlights"
"Say You Will"
"Real Bad News"
"Amazing"
"Tell Everybody That You Know"
"Coldest Winter"