The music video for "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" was directed by Hype Williams and shot entirely in black and white. It was filmed on location in Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic. West was fascinated by the architecture found in the capital and felt its sculptures, cathedrals, and stone pavements emitted the timeless feel of "Diamonds". The video illustrates the topics West would later touch on within the remix of the song, as it features visuals of young African children digging away in mines under the careful watch of their wardens. The images are juxtaposed with scenes of wealthy Westerners shopping in boutiques and trying on jewellery. The music video ends with text that reads, "Please purchase conflict-free diamonds”.
The whole video is very clever as it is filmed in black and white so you get a cold shiver down your back when you watch it. It is almost like some of the nasty scenes in Schindlers List, which throughout the whole film is in black and white. Just before the music starts in the video there is a subtitled intro saying “Little is known of Sierra Leone and how it connects to the diamonds we own”. Then the video starts to play and subtitles are shown saying
“we work in the Diamond Rivers. From sunrise to sunset. Under the watchful eyes of soldiers. Every day we fear for our lives. Some of us were enslaved by rebels. And forced to kill our own families for Diamonds. We are the children of the blood diamonds”.
The music video is one of the few music videos that I know of that have credits at the end of the video. As the credits are rolling down in the video you see Kanye West, walking off in the background. To me when he was walking off it looked like a chapter in his life was ending because in the video you see him driving a car into a jewel store and you see children running out helping Kanye him get on his feet then you see them running off heading towards a church. Kanye West, must think is a safe place for the children that is why I thought a chapter in his life was complete because you feel he has finally done something good in his life. The song went gold in America. I think the reason for this is the song is not a club banger it actually has a message to give to people but now with the current generation we are in, people want club bangers with awful lyrics that mean nothing and are not important to their word. The song came in to the chart at 43 but the song was a bigger hit in the United Kingdom. It came in to the chart at number 8. I think the reason for this is that everyone knows that Kanye West is a producer who samples other peoples beats. For this song in the background when he stops rapping you hear Shirley Bassey vocals. The original song which was sung by her was used for the James bond song Diamonds Are Forever in 1971. I found the song on YouTube, MySpace, Vevo and Daily Motion. On YouTube the video has been watched 7,163,895 times by the public. The video was released in 2005 but uploaded onto YouTube in 2009 by Kanye West. Vevo channel the video also has 16,626 likes and 406 dislikes with some of the comments I have read about the video a lot of them don’t seem to talk about the video. Most of the comments say “ah man I miss this Kanye West”, “it’s a shame that he sold out”. Now as a Kanye West fan I don’t think he has sold out, I think he is getting better and better with each album that he makes but that is just my opinion. The song got so popular in the United Kingdom that they made a remix featuring Jay Z. The song proved even more popular than the original but no video was made. Critics gave Jay z’s verse very good reviews. With all the music videos I have looked at this one is one of my favourites
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