12 Years A Slave’s Steve McQueen shoots new Kanye West video

By Alex McLevy  |  July 20, 2015 | 5:27pm
Aux Features Music

After Steve McQueen’s harrowing drama 12 Years A Slave won the Oscar for Best Picture, he likely faced the same existential crisis that greets any artist who has received one of the highest honors bestowed in their field: Where to go from here? Sure, you can hire the author of Gone Girl to write you a heist movie. And yes, you can create a new HBO series about high society, as one does. But McQueen decided to put his newfound cultural cache to even greater purpose: He picked up the phone and said, “Gimme Kanye West’s number.” And now, Indiewire reports the director has shot a video for West’s upcoming album, set to screen this week at the Los Angeles County Museum Of Art.

Having previously aired at Paris Fashion Week, some details about the video are already known. Reportedly clocking in at around nine minutes, it contains two songs (“All Day” and “I Feel Like That”) from West’s forthcoming record, tentatively titled SWISH. (Presumably so named for being the sound of a basketball sailing through a hoop without touching the rim, and also the sound West makes every time he finishes a new track, issues a press release, or flushes the toilet.) According to The New York Times, it’s done in a single take, following West as he “runs, crouches, dodges, raps, rants, sweats and pants, as if being pursued by the camera or the police or in pursuit himself, until he slumps against the wall to catch his breath.”

LACMA is airing the video for four days, starting on Saturday. No word on when it will be released online, but West’s ego is probably leaking it onto streaming sites as we speak.

 
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