A video of Black Skinheads, Kanye West’s latest single, surfaced online and was pulled.
Apparently the unfinished clip of the video, which is the latest single from his album Yeezus, was leaked on the Internet.
When the video first appeared on the web, there were questions among viewers about whether it was real or fake, as it a features mostly computer-generated images of West.
According to latimes.com:
“Though the clip didn’t appear on West’s official site, the clip quickly circulated after a link to a Universal Music Group ‘development’ page started making the rounds. In the black-and-white clip, a CGI-version of a very buff West morphs into a demon during the dark video. There’s some of the same scary Dobermans and KKK references that left fans scratching their heads when he debuted the track on ‘Saturday Night Live’ against a stark backdrop. And at one point, there’s even some shocking full-frontal nudity courtesy of an anatomically incorrect (we assume) rendering of West.”
Kanye was reportedly quite upset about the leak and he took to Twitter to urge removal of the video to allow him and director Nick Knight to complete it properly. As reported by the guardian.co.uk:
“Me and Nick Knight have been working on this video for 5 months and for creatives it’s heartbreaking when something like this happens,” Kanye wrote on Twitter.
The rapper politely requested that any website that had been hosting the unapproved and unfinished version take it down, pleading, “Allow me and Nick to give the world what we’ve been losing sleep over.” He finally added: “Also who ever leaked the video **** you!”
Kanye’s frustration over wanting to finish his art before he shares it the world is understandable. But Internet leaks are so commonplace now that they are just part of the territory. New music is leaked, news is leaked and now videos are leaked as well.
As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t be out of the question to wonder whether this is a publicity stunt by the record label to generate buzz.
Either way, as Kanye’s big brother Jay-Z said, “The Internet is like the Wild West.”
So Kanye is just dealing with #newrules.
