Jay-Z Run This Town Official Music Video

"Run This Town" is a 2009 song performed by American rapper Jay-Z. The song features Barbadian R&B singer Rihanna and rap artist Kanye West, who also produced the song alongside No I.D. It is released as the second single of Jay-Z's studio album The Blueprint 3. After the song was released to iTunes on August 11, 2009, it jumped to the third position on the Billboard Hot 100, making it his highest peak as a lead artist to date. It is also Jay-Z's first Top 5 Rap Song since 2006's "Show Me What You Got". Jay-Z, Rihanna and West performed "Run This Town" on the series premiere of The Jay Leno Show on September 14, 2009.

Background
The second official single was originally planned as "Off That" featuring Drake but has since been changed to "Run This Town" with Rihanna and Kanye West, as confirmed by Jay-Z in an interview with Tim Westwood, "We basically run this town. It's myself, Rihanna and Kanye. It's pretty much it." The song made its radio debut on July 24 at 9:11 a.m to coincide with the album's release date, September 11th, 2009. The official single was released on iTunes on August 11, 2009. It was officially released to urban radio the week of August 9, 2009. Its UK release followed on August 31 2009. Rihanna's contribution was her first musical appearance following her February 8th altercation with her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown.

The video was directed by Anthony Mandler and was filmed on August 6, 2009 at Fort Totten Park in New York City. The video was leaked on August 19, 2009 by MTV Germany.

The video premiered on August 20th on MTV, as well other MTV channels across the world, and the internet. Anthony Mandler the director of the music video had this to say:

"There's a tone and feeling to the song, there's a militia, a march and a kind of rambunctious energy to it that, for me, I immediately wanted to tap into. I showed [Jay] some references from the classic rebellious zones of the world. We live in very orderly society in America, but when you get into Brazil, you get into the Middle East, you get into Africa, you get into Eastern Europe, when you get into places like that, there's a different sort of 'we run this town' [going on]. There's less order and more chaos. So we looked at a lot of those references, new photos and historical photos, to capture that kind of falling-apart feeling."

"We wanted you to feel uneasy throughout the piece," he said. "We wanted there to be a constant layer of tension through the piece. Even in the way I shot — where the camera comes by Jay, it doesn't stop on him, it goes to Rihanna — there's kind of this chaos of revealing and covering and concealing. And things happen offscreen that you don't see. I think people are really gonna flip on this". The video was released to iTunes on August 25, 2009. source: wikipedia