Kanye West releases his “Paranoid” video starring Rihanna on his own blog, after yet another unfinished version leaks online, the high school drop out rapper put his foot down and decided to share the much more polished version than the incomplete version that leaked last week. Kanye had been devastated that fans had been exposed to a “video" that was not up to my standards.” The early version of the "Paranoid" video by director Nabil Elderkin described the leaked clip to MTV News last week as a "rough cut." So West took to his own site to post the completed final version, which he revealed was set to debut Thursday.
Kanye had written, “It hurts me to see the old and very wrong version of the ‘Paranoid’ video get leaked all over the net while I was on an 11-hour flight and couldn’t do anything about it. It’s just frustrating when this stuff happens because I really care about the product and, since videos never get played anyway, you might as well tweak them”.
In "Paranoid," an ominous West is featured only sparingly in the clip and takes a backseat to a sexy Rihanna. The "Umbrella" star is introduced in a bedroom scene, as the camera pans over her before a number of shadow-like hands pull the covers away from her. Rihanna later appears in a noir-style car chase. Kanye is in a darker role in the clip, never appearing onscreen for longer than a few seconds. The rapper's characteristics are enhanced at times and appear wolf-like. His eyes flash to reveal narrow, beady pupils, and fangs flash onscreen several times. By the end of the clip, Rihanna returns to bed, tossing and turning, but doesn't wake up. The three-minute video appears to be a bad dream. The director said the clip matches the song's premise. "It's fantasy meets paranoid, when you get into that frame of mind and get trapped into your thoughts," Elderkin explained. "It starts out subtle, but then it just builds. So I wanted to get that into the video, to build that into her dream sequence and get her into that paranoid state of mind."
Check it out for yourself in the clip below: