Kanye West has spent a reported $3 million dollar album budget recording and shooting an accompanying film to his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. After studio sessions in Hawaii with the likes of Jay-Z, RZA, Swizz Beatz and Mos Def, as well as at least one 20-hour filming session in Prague, West unveiled his film this week.
“Purple Rain, The Wall, Michael Jackson’s Thriller—I wanted to do a modern version of that,” West explained. In line with his Thriller inspiration, The BBC’s Newsbeat reports that one sequence of the film features a huge paper mache model of Michael Jackson’s head. West also described the central plot of the film, which incorporates “Runaway”
and a majority of the music from his upcoming 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.”
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Model Selita Ebanks plays the role of the phoenix, while Nicki Minaj, who also collaborated with West on “Monster,” narrates in an English accent. Kanye directed and wrote the film along with art director Vanessa Beecroft and producer Jonathan Lia. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is scheduled for release on November 22, although West said the film would be premiered worldwide within the next two weeks.
