Runaway

Click here to view Kanye West's new short film, "Runaway"

      Finally, after weeks of waiting, visionary hip-hop artist Kanye West debuted his epic short-film "Runaway". The film was simulcast Saturday night on MTV, MTV2, and BET. After watching it for the third time this morning, I can honestly vouch for MTV when they said that "'Runaway' solidifies Kanye West as the greatest pop star of this generation."
      "Runaway" is truly an incredible piece of art, certainly on par with Michael Jacksons's "Thriller" and Pink Floyd's "Pink Floyd The Wall," if not going above and beyond both of those in terms of aesthetic beauty. The fim centers around Mr. West finding a Phoenix-woman who has landed on Earth, taking her in and teaching her about the ways of this world, and the Phoenix rejecting this world.
      Featuring nine of Kanye's songs from his upcoming album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, along with incredible special effects, Nicki Minaj with a British accent, gorgeous sweeping camera angles and model Selita Ebanks as the Phoenix, this is not one to miss. There's a scene at a fireworks show that has Kanye's new song "All of the Lights" (which also contains vocals from eleven other big name artists, including Rihanna and John Legend) which is remarkably beautiful and musically awesome. There's also a four-minute segment in which a dozen ballerinas hold complicated positions while Mr. West performs an auto-tuned conclusion to his song "Runaway" and a crane camera performs swooping, surreal shots. The film ends with the thought-provoking and remarkable "Lost in the World", a soulful song made by Mr. West with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver (the song samples Bon Iver's "Woods"), finishing with an eerie poem about America by spoken-word poet Gil Scott-Heron.
      In my opinion, Kanye West will go down in history as one of the most important musicians of all time. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is set to be released on November 22, and you can preorder the album on iTunes here.

      If you have not seen "Runaway" yet, you can follow this link to Kanye West's website to watch the uncensored version, or watch the clean version below.