Empire State of Mind

in Music by negrostotle — October 5, 2009 at 12:50 pm | 0 comments

The next video off of Jay-Z’s ginormous Blueprint 3 album is the Jay and Alicia Keys New York Anthem; Empire State of Mind. Hype Williams was tapped to direct (don’t worry, if you forget…I’m sure you’ll see his name in huge letters and glitter before the video starts) and the duo decided to film in various New York areas including Tribeca and Ground Zero. More from A-Keys, via MTV,

“Working together on ‘Empire State of Mind’ was incredible,” Keys said. “I’ve admired Jay-Z for a long time. Reasonable Doubt is my all-time favorite album, period, and he’s been on the scene for long time. I always figured that we would do some type of collaboration, and finally, it came together with this. He reached out to me said, ‘I have this big New York record. I feel its right for us to do it together. It has this big Frank Sinatra, take-it-there feeling. I feel like you could really do something with it.’

“I went by [the studio], took a listen to it,” she continued. “I really felt the energy of New York all through it. It felt classic, it felt so good; the piano obviously was in there. I said, ‘I love it, so let’s do it.’ We communicated a lot during the process. I think we both are really happy with how it came out.”

For everyone that was too lazy to read that…you can listen to it and stare at Alicia Keys.

Who is keeping their fingers crossed for a Lil Mama cameo?

Tags: Alicia Keys blueprint 3 Empire State of Mind jay-z Lil Mama