Monster Video: Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Rick Ross Monster Video

Updating the update of the update: After months of it being tucked away from sight, the real-deal final cut of the “Monster” video has been released. Click to watch Kanye West, “Monster,” featuring Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z and Rick Ross.

Update: It appears as if Kanye West’s leaked “Monster” video has been pulled by the copyright police. Understandable since the video was pretty clearly not the finished product. Still, we’re pretty excited for the high resolution version of the artistically macabre video, whenever it finally, actually, completely drops. In the meantime, we still have The Muppets “Monster” video.

Also update: The latest on the yet-to-be-released-and-maybe-banned-or-censored-by-MTV “Monster” video

The wait is over. The “Monster” video has dropped (leaked?). In an age when internet killed the video star, Kanye West managed to drum up incredible buzz regarding the video for “Monster,” his monster hit from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, West’s recent highly acclaimed album. Co-starring some of the biggest names in hip hop, Rick Ross and Jay-Z, Kanye West’s biggest score might have been the inimitable Nicki Minaj, whose drops a monumentally fiery verse on the song (Nicki Minaj is one of our year-end “5 Reasons Why New York Hip Hop Doesn’t Suck“).

The song’s artists, sans Rick Ross, famously united on stage at Jay-Z and Eminem’s summertime extravaganza at Yankee Stadium, just as the song was beginning to circulate. The hype for the video started reaching a fever pitch when stills and backstage video was leaked weeks ago, showing a gory and extremely macabre visualization was in the works.

That buzz exploded as a trailer hit the web in early December, upping the eerie ante with scenes from all four hip hop heavyweights, some depictions bordering on horrific.

Since then, it was not entirely clear when the full video was going to drop, or why the delay between trailer, and video, but as we mentioned, the wait is over. It appears to be a leak, as the quality is not HD and the sound seems to be off sync in a couple of parts, but nothing us bootleg movie watchers can’t deal with. We’ll replace with HD quality as soon as it becomes available.

For now, here is the video for “Monster,” in all of it’s gory.. er… glory.