Kanye West Runs Away With “Flashing Lights”

Written By S. Samuel

Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West has revealed that his elements of his 2008 "Flashing Lights" music video are present in the forthcoming film, Runaway.

Kanye West
1.3k Views Comments Off on Kanye West Runs Away With “Flashing Lights”

West stated that both of his pieces contain similar graphic detail.

“I think there’s a lot of similarity in this and ‘Flashing Lights,’ ” West told MTV News on Wednesday (October 20) after a limited Manhattan screening of “Runaway.” “‘Flashing Lights’ is my favorite piece of work that I’ve done. The pacing, people are always like, ‘Where is the rest of it?’ But we didn’t have the time or whatever or the money to do the rest of it…Look at it graphically, how it starts. With the car, the orange sky, the color palettes, the blue sky, the car pulling up with the orange headlights. And just the beautiful women, taking the Helmut Newton type photo and bringing it to real life and crashing it against Jim Henson and George Lucas type whimsy and taking, like, a [Federico] Fellini, [Stanley] Kubrick pacing and a very graphic novel/ comic book type setup on all the shots. There’s a lot of shots that are borderline illegal for a film student. It just breaks rules, because I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.” (MTV)

Various reviews of Runaway have hit the Internet since the film began screening in various cities last week.

The result: a stunning display of color and rhythm at the intersection of art, fashion, music and dance. The loose story, of the familiar phoenix rising variety (his love interest is played by Victoria’s Secret model Selita Ebanks), is really secondary to the emotional resonance and not-so-subtle symbolism Kanye forces the viewer to confront. So for his now infamous toast to the “douchebags, assholes and scumbags” (and the movie’s namesake), the setting is a virginal white last supper during which a herd of ballerinas accent the song’s many twists and turns, while in an earlier sequence, men wearing red Ku Klux Klan-like hoods march through a field, destination: unknown. (Hollywood Reporter)

Last month, West said his film would be roughly 40 minutes in length.

“I’m color-correcting this film I shot in Prague a couple weeks ago. I want to edit the film on a boat. Where are the good editing boats?” — is called Runaway, and is a 40-minute noir piece based on his new album. “It’s 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,” he told us. “I’ve been feeling the idea of the phoenix. It’s been in my heart for a while. It’s maybe parallel to my career. I threw a Molotov cocktail on my career last year, in a way, and I had to come back as a better person.” Is it weird that we wanted to hug him? Like, somebody, please find this man his missing fish tank, you know?” (New York Magazine)

Over the summer, West stated that the “Flashing Lights” video was his favorite visual creation.

“My personal favorite music video, I don’t know if I’ve ever said this in an interview, it’s ‘Flashing Lights,'” Yeezy revealed in hisUStream broadcast. “Hands down. Like, by a mile. My personal favorite is ‘Flashing Lights.’ Actually, I got the same outfit from ‘Flashing Lights’ on right now. It was like the references, I loved all those simple images with the woman looking so powerufl and even though she’s nude, it wasn’t submissive in any way and that was one of the things on ‘Flashing Lights’ that this woman was so powerful when she hopped out of the car and we used a real American, Americana type car instead of trying to be extra sophisticated with some fancy new car. She had the mink coat with the lingerie, and her body was just my taste. And it was way different than what’s in the magazines nowadays and what the fashion world says is hot. As you know, my taste is completely different. It’s hood, I’m straight Chicago.” (Ustream)

Check out the “Flashing Lights” music video down below:

Comments Off on Kanye West Runs Away With “Flashing Lights”

Written by S. Samuel

Steven Samuel is the co-founder of SOHH.com.

50 Cent

50 Cent Ends Silence On Chelsea Handler Date

Interscope Records Locks The LOX, “The Label Doesn’t Want To Let Us Go”