Kanye West Unveils Epic New 'Runaway' Film

Kanye West unveiled his new 40-minute film Runaway — which is based around My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy 's second single — in Paris on Tuesday and in London last night. "Purple Rain, The Wall, Michael Jackson's Thriller — I wanted to do a modern version of that," Kanye said in his introduction, as the BBC reports. He added that he hopes the film will "bring real culture to popular culture," promising a worldwide debut in the next two weeks. The film will also be packaged with Fantasy when the album hits shelves on November 22nd.

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Eight or nine other tracks from Dark Twisted Fantasy are also featured in the film, which West wrote and co-directed with art director Vanessa Beecroft and producer Jonathan Lia. West has described Runaway as "the story of a phoenix fallen to Earth, and I make her my girlfriend, and people discriminate against her and eventually she has to burn herself alive and go back to her world." Model Selita Ebanks plays the phoenix, and West's "Monster' cohort Nicki Minaj reportedly narrates the film in an English accent. The Hip-Hop Chronicle has a spoiler-filled rundown of the "epic" short film.

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Song Stories

“Youth Knows No Pain”

Lykke Li | 2011

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”

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