Kanye West’s latest video is nothing short of jaw-dropping.
Featuring naked figures of Taylor Swift, Bill Cosby, Donald Trump, Rihanna, Caitlyn Jenner and George Bush, among others, “Famous” was screened to an arena full of fans on Friday night in Los Angeles. The rapper premiered the powerful clip – the sole single (so far) from his latest album, The Life of Pablo – at the L.A. Forum as an 8-minute short film art piece.
Voyeuristic, provocative and surreal throughout, in it, West is seen laying in bed with his wife Kim Kardashian alongside Swift, Ray J, Chris Brown, Amber Rose, Rihanna, Caitlyn Jenner, Cosby, Anna Wintour, Trump and Bush – each flanking the other while seemingly asleep. All of the celebrities are entirely lifelike but synthetic bodies.
The scene is presumably post-coital and shot on with a fuzzy grain to the video that gives an even more heightened sense of its sexuality. Each of the figures, whose commonality is individual infamy – some, like Swift, referenced in the lyrics to “Famous” (“I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? / I made that bitch famous” – appears to breath gently as the camera pans over their faces and around intimate, starkly nude details of their bodies.
At the Forum event, a four-minute interlude arrived before the final verse that stretched on uncomfortably for those shocked by the visual of Swift's naked body, laying face up with her breasts exposed. Using the pop singer as the centerpiece of the clip was a controversial artistic decision considering the two’s public dust-ups in the past – most recently, about whether Swift did or didn’t approve of the line referencing her in the song.
The video is available now on Tidal.
•Text courtesy of Billboard. Photo shows rap superstar Kanye West.
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