All of the Lights

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This the music video to one of my favorite songs of the past year- "All of the Lights". The track features Kanye West, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Elton John, John Legend, Fergie, The-Dream, Elly Jackson, and my personal favorite artist- Kid Cudi. The beat of the song is so good on its own, that many people probably never really try to listen to the lyrics. I've listened to it probably 100 times, and looked up a bunch of opinions and reviews on the internet, but I still don't really know exactly what Kanye's talking about in the song. The video offers some insight into this, and reinforces what I thought the song was about- a man trying to be a part of his life. The video starts off with the All of the Lights interlude, which shows a little girl walking around an urban enviornment all by her self. The area is actually eerily similar looking to our own UB South campus, and must be what Kanye is referring to when he says can't let her grow up in that ghetto university". In the first verse Kanye talks about how he was taken away for hitting his woman, and has been slapped with a restraining order. Now he can't see his daughter, and he's distraught because he doens't want her to grow up in "that ghetto university". That's basically the plot, but there's a lot more there that's not as easily decipherable. For example what does he even mean by All of the Lights? I have no idea, but I have a theory (probably a wrong one). The night he was arrested for beating his woman, he saw a bunch of lights. First cop lights when they pulled in the driveway. Then, as they get out of the car and come up to the door for him they have flashlights. He then runs which spawns a search for him that requires spot lights. Then strobe lights. I don't really know how this fits in, but maybe he ran downtown or to a club that had strobe lights? Probably not, but whatever. Finally, he's caught and sits in the back of the car where he admires the street lights out the side window as the cops take him away. Rihanna always remarks that Kanye wants you to see all of the lights, maybe this means that Kanye wants his daughter to see what he went through, so she can save herself from it. Another possible meaning of it, is that All of the Lights of the music world are present in the song. Kanye, Rihanna, Cudi, Elton John, Fergie, Alicia Keys, John Legend, etc. In Kanye's mind these could be the lights of the musical world. He's already said that Kid Cudi is his favorite artist of this decade. Other possible meanings even include Kanye's Taylor Swift incident factoring into the song. The video itself is revolutionary. It's very trippy, and very dark, and is a gateway into Kanye's Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (The name of the Album). The video itself is all of those things, and if nothing else, really cool to look at for 5 minutes.