Who else but Kanye West could essentially take over the entire world in a matter of just a few hours? After tweeting that his new song and an accompanying visual would premiere on sixty-six buildings around the world on Friday night, I immediately jumped at the chance to witness this kind of historic event. Surely, my children will want to know where I was when I first experienced “New Slaves,” the first single from his upcoming unnamed album, supposedly dropping on June 18th.
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/335569132214972416
The map on Kanye’s website listed a bunch of buildings scattered throughout New York (and the world) that would be showing the video in fifteen minute increments at the night. I chose a spot in Chelsea but due to a mix-up, Kanye’s team never showed. Luckily, we bolted up to the last showing of the night across from the Trump Building on 5th Avenue just in time. This area seemed much more fitting as it would project Kanye above the Prada store. Although, the Louis Vuitton store would have been slightly more poetic.
After the initial viewing, someone told us to wait for another ten minutes. After waiting almost three hours, we figured another ten minutes couldn’t hurt. They showed us the video again but something was different—this time, Kanye pulled up to watch us watching him. Of course, we didn’t find this out until afterwards but the sentiment is nice.
Here’s a Vine from the first go around. It seems that the most quotable line of this song will certainably be, “I’d rather be a dick than a swallower.” Truly profound.
Here’s a video from the second viewing. I apologize in advance for panning to the funny white guy dancing in front of me but I couldn’t let his moves go unrecorded for the internet to watch forever.