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The key to the white cool modernist/hot black African motif in Kanye West's video is the lyrics. The character sings about keeping his "love locked down," and by this he means that he does not trust the woman he loves and has decided he must hide or repress the love he has for her. The white condo, with furniture slip-covered in white as though to protect it, and devoid of any evidence of homemaking, symbolizes the spartan effect of his decision on his domestic and emotional life. The single object in the space is a telescope, because he can only observe the life he might have if he were to relax his self-imposed stricture.
The African dancing figures represent the life of passion, excitement and danger he imagines he would have were he to embrace this woman he does not trust.
One might complain about the African figures being used to connote the return of the repressed, because this equates Africans with savagery, primitivism, corporeality, and emotion rather than with civilized represssion. I'm not sure how bothersome this is. Isn't it like if a white guy used Vikings or knights to symbolize his inner self unharnessed? Is that so bad?
