The song's accompanying music video, directed by Anthony Mandler, depicts the trio in a post-apocalyptic environment, featuring scenes involving angry protesters surrounding them.

"Run This Town" was performed by Jay-Z, West, and Rihanna on the series premiere of The Jay Leno Show in the United States.

So one day when Kanye was in New York, he came in at 10am and in two takes he was done.”[5]The song made its radio debut on July 24, 2009, at 9:11 am to coincide with the album's release date, September 11, 2009.

(Death of Auto-Tune)' left the impression that The Blueprint 3 might be a cantankerous grumpy-old-man rap album, but 'Run This Town' totally obliterates that.

Roc Nation dropped the ball on the song credit though; it was supposed to read 'Kanye West Featuring Rihanna,' because 'Ye murdered Jay on his own track.

and Rihanna's "hey-hey" chorus hook make Jay-Z seem surplus to requirements, which surely can't have been the aim.

The chaotic military march beats are impressive – and hats off to Jigga for snubbing Auto-Tune – but this track still doesn't seem fitting of an artist considered a groundbreaking rap legend.

[25] "Run This Town" reached 3 million in digital sales in May 2012, becoming the third 3-million seller for Jay-Z, the sixth for West and a record ninth for Rihanna.

[32] The feat gave Jay-Z his first number one single in Britain as a lead artist and fourth overall, following his feature on Rihanna's "Umbrella" (2007) and his wife Beyoncé's "Déjà Vu" (2006) and "Crazy in Love" (2003).

The video for "Run This Town" was directed by Anthony Mandler and was filmed on August 6, 2009, at Fort Totten Park in New York City.

Mandler explained the production behind the video saying: "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.

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].

Rihanna takes a bandanna from covering her mouth and performs the intro of the song in a park area with explosions firing around her.

Kanye West sings his verse in a cave-like area holding a torch and having a bandanna cover his face like Jay-Z and Rihanna.

Daniel Kreps of Rolling Stone called the video, "a civilization that takes Jigga's lyrical motif of 'all black everything' very seriously."

He further added, "When we first heard 'Run This Town', we pictured Jay-Z and his posse staging a siege on Manhattan, or at least going to all the VIP spots most civilians only dream about like in the "D.O.A.

Instead, we're introduced to a Mad Max-like landscape full of proto-biker gear, torches, face scarves and bombed-out buildings.

Also, according to the video, Rihanna is the only female to survive the apocalypse, and West's verse about Reeboks, Rav4s and girls with two bee stings seem starkly out of place in the dismal future.

[44] Metalcore band Miss May I covered this song for the compilation album Punk Goes Pop Volume 03..[citation needed] Lil Wayne freestyled "Run This Town" on his highly acclaimed mixtape No Ceilings.

[48] The song was performed at the closing ceremony at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London with British rock band Coldplay and Rihanna.