I don’t hate the idea of this, oddly enough. Kanye West’s latest single off of The Life of Pablo is “Wolves.” Instead of directing a short film/long-form video for the single himself, Kanye agreed to work with Balmain to produce a Steven Klein-directed music video/advertisement. Like, this works as a music video AND a commercial. Obviously, the video stars Kanye… and Kim Kardashian. And Kylie Jenner. And some of the “Balmain Army” including Joan Smalls, Alessandra Ambrosia, Jourdan Dunn, Riley Montana, Cindy Crawford and more. The song and video also features Frank Ocean (!!!!) and Sia. I like the hook of this song a lot, surprisingly.
Here’s the video – the imagery is fine, but the lyrics are NSFW.
Kanye and Kim are particularly close to Balmain’s creative director Olivier Rousteing, and I think this is an interesting collaboration between Kanye and Olivier in particular. The stuff with Kim wearing her Met Gala Balmain dress is meh, mostly because we’ve already seen her in that. Rousteing told Vogue:
“This is definitely one of the most incredible campaigns I’ve ever done. When I saw Kanye singing, Kim moving, the models walking and crying, the tears on Kanye, the tears on Kim—I was just like, ‘Wow.’”
Vogue has more here. I think I would love an entirely-Sia or entirely-Frank Ocean version of this song a lot. Right? And less Kim in the video. But otherwise… this is fine.
Also: it never fails to amuse me that Kanye consistently raps “preg-ah-nated.” As in, it’s a verb: to preg-AH-nate.
Photos courtesy of Steven Klein/Balmain and Fame/Flynet.
I may be wrong but it feels a little ironic to me that Kanye would be doing such a corporate type thing with his videos. I sort of that he was a bit more antiestablishment than that.
I may have read the situation wrong.
Lol, Kate don’t let his anti-establishment BS fool you, he wants nothing more than for a corporation to sponsor his lunacy and ego. He talks about it all the time. Remember when he asked Mark zuckerberg for a ridiculous amount of money on TWITTER!!! Lol
And he used the Drake concert to promote Snapchat.
How could I have forgotten!! Yes it’s all clear now 😜
I didn’t even know about the snapchat thing
Agreed!
I actually like this track, Kanye is many things but he is talented.
Me too, I love Wolves.
truth.
He’s a wanker but, a talented wanker. Not sure I’d go so far as to call him a genius – but this video – like it or hate it – is certainly visually and creatively different from anything else I’ve seen out there.
I agree.
same here, and also the Video, I think that it showcases the clothes very well, all that brocade in B&W??! Idk it was interesting
Dear people at Balmain:
I will not be buying anything from a company that releases videos calling women “b*tches” over and over again while also using the “n” word.
Agree in principle (also can’t afford Balmain or their ilk) – but compared to the racist/misogynist asshats running basically all design houses I’m not sure this is the worst of it. I mean, I am more disturbed by the perpetuation of the skin and bones as perfection model that design houses perpetrate, than the use of the word ‘bitches’
In fact – I could even play with the argument that Kanye is reclaiming the word…maybe
Reclaim the n word argument has never made sense. Reclaim means to get something back. Why would anybody want a word like that back?
I’m afraid I don’t belong to a culture/social group that uses (or attempts to reclaim) either of those words, so I don’t feel I really speak for or against..but certainly I’d be willing to listen to the argument, is what I meant in my comment. However, from a personal perspective – I used ‘native’ repeatedly in my doctoral thesis – a word that my supervisor was very very uncomfortable with me using because it has been deemed pejorative in some academic circles. However, I felt it’s been used to describe my and my ancestors for generations, so I should be able to use it and own it and and define it the way *I* see it. That’s my reading of reclaiming the word, anyway.
And my point still stands – of all the ways in which the fashion industry denigrates and discounts women, calling them bitches, in my opinion, is probably less damaging than some of the other things that we routinely overlook.
Reclaiming the word native isn’t the same as the n word. It’s not even close.
Agree. Balmain is getting what they want – free advertisement in the fact that people will talk about this and it will be on many gossip sites.
Let’s face it, you probably can’t afford Balmain anyway…
@sophia Haha. Seriously? Not everyone is broke my friend. What next, you’re just a hater or are jealous… Seems to be standard responses.
All those clothes look like shit.
Really? I thought the dress Sia has on is absolutely beautiful and a work of art.
When they are commercially reproduced, they will be passable. But truth time, Balmain is not marketed towards the everyday person. My ex-flatmate used to wear Balmain and she always put it together right and looked gorgeous.
It’s Vic Mensa in the video not Frank Ocean
You are correct!
What will Ricardo say?
Every time I see Balmain, I keep thinking it’s “Batman”.
Every time I see Balmain, I keep thinkking – KarTRASHians, KarTRASHians, KarTRASHians.
I don’t see fashion, I see KarTRASHians.
Do you actually, seriously, consider this a good song, or even a song at all? Does West know any other nouns or verbs apart from the n word, famous, bitch and pre-ah-gnated?! Jesus…
Right? Are people still on the Kim and Kanye took Taylor swift down high or something? Smh. Kanye also needs to stop with the whole I think I’m Jesus or some other major biblical character from the bible, because it’s old and played out. And also trying to elevate Kim to that as well? Haha. Um no. He’s not a genius – why people even entertain that nonsense blows my mind, he’s not a God, he’s not a fashion maven, he’s just a misogynistic, narcissistic, rapper/producer who married the biggest fame wh*re on the planet. Nothing more. I used to like Kanye before he jumped ship, I am also not taking away from the fact he does have some talent, but people just take it too far.
Yep. This Is a great song, it’s in my top songs of 2016 way before the TS takedown. A great lovesong.
Dayum! Am I the only reluctant convert not just to hold (old hard-good habits) to Kanye but to Kim?! Yes! Who am I??? Why do I LOVE HER?!
I would never acknowledge her in public, but definitely a wink and a smile. Unless Kanye were there. Praise where it’s due.
I don’t know, but you two did me right. 😉
Kim, thank you? Talk about your fat redistribution without shame and then the LOVE WILL REALLY START.
Btw, that is Vic Mensa, not Frank Ocean:)