Touch the Sky

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"Touch the Sky"

Single by Kanye West
from the album Late Registration
Released	April 24, 2006
Format	N/A
Genre	Hip-Hop
Length	3:57
Label	Roc-A-Fella/Island Def Jam
Writer(s)	Kanye West Justin Smith Wasalu Muhammad Jaco Curtis Mayfield
Producer(s)	Just Blaze
Chart positions
#6 (UK) #10 (Australia) #42 (USA)
Kanye West singles chronology
"Heard 'Em Say" (2005)	"Touch the Sky" (2006)

"Touch the Sky" is the fourth single released from Kanye West's second album, Late Registration. It was released in early 2006. The video is directed by Chris Milk who previously worked on West's award-winning "Jesus Walks" and the video for "All Falls Down."

The song was produced by Just Blaze and is the only song on Late Registration not produced by West himself. Blaze uses a noticeably-slowed-down sample of Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up". It also features Lupe Fiasco.

[edit] Promo video

The music video is made as a 70s style short movie about Evel Kanyevel (an obvious parody of Evel Knievel played by West), and his attempt to fly a small rocket across the Snake River Canyon. The video also features Pamela Anderson, Nia Long, Tracee Ellis Ross, and the Booker T. Washington High School Marching Band of Houston, Texas, which performs with Fiasco at a pep rally. At the end of the video, West fails in landing the rocket and crashes into the canyon, and after the ship has exploded, a scene with West dancing in the clouds is shown, having finally "touched the sky."

In the first verse of the song, West references the same subject of his massive hit "Through The Wire": "I think I died in that accident 'cause this must be heaven". This quote was also Jay-Z's favorite line from West.^{[citation needed]} Midway through the video, the music is interrupted as Evel Kanyevel is interviewed by a Howard Cosell-type newscaster, who asks him about what effects his comments on President Nixon will have on his career (an oblique reference to West's own comments on President Bush in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina). The interview is itself interrupted by Nia Long (as Kanyevel's ex-girlfriend) supported by Tracee Ellis Ross. During the altercation that follows, Ross tells her friend, in a reference to West's "Gold Digger", "that's right, girl, I told you, when he get on, he gonna leave yo' ass for a white girl".

[edit] Lawsuit

In 2006, Evel Knievel filed a lawsuit against Kanye West for trademark infringement [1]. Specifically, Knievel's lawsuit cites the similarities between West's star-adorned, blue and white costume in the video and the costume in which the stuntman wore when attempting his 1974 Snake River Canyon jump.

Several un-official remixes to the song can be found online, with such versions featuring Jadakiss, Styles P, The Game, and Charlie Baltimore.