Patrick Stump Sends Love Letter To "This City"

Fall Out Boy frontman Patrick Stump released the music video for "This City," the lead single from his solo debut album, "Soul Punk," will hit US stores on October 18. Featuring his fellow Chicagoan rapper Lupe Fiasco, and the duo have made their statement on their home city of Chicago, it also sees snippets of the rocker wandering around a bustling metropolis. While the 'Superstar' rapper spits his verse in a hoodie, Stump dances around in a tuxedo as they sing praises of Chicago in video.
Stump not only lost a bunch of weight during the indefinite break of the rock band, but he also took that time to work on his much-desired solo debut. The 27-year-old is best-known as the main creative force behind '00s pop-punk standard-bearers Fall Out Boy, but the R&B and hip-hop influences that have long been part of his music come to the foreground on his upcoming album, "Soul Punk." "This City" is equal parts love letter to the Windy City and dance song, steered by Stump's high, slightly feminine melodic vocals, set against club beats, and Fiasco's hard hitting rap verse, upping the song's rhythmic quotient.
The catchy tune with full-on R&B mode and pop-synth explosion, is more soul than punk. Stump said the track's poppy slickness is representative of the album, "It sounds kind of like it makes sense on the radio but at the same time doesn't at all. It's very me." The song also caused Stump to change the course of the entire "Soul Punk" album. He explained to Billboard magazine: "I had written a while draft of the album and then at the 11th hour came up with 'This City.' I really loved the song but felt like, conceptually, it didn't fit on the album. I had to go back and make an album for that song because I loved it so much."
The Ken Koller-directed video is a decidedly minimal affair, and it features Stump singing whilst various images and lights are projected on the walls. Stump told to MTV News why instead of filling the screen of shots of city life he went with an artfully abstract way to present the song: "The song's called 'This City,' and it describes a lot of these images in a city, and I feel like those images are already there; it would be kind of redundant to take a camera into a city; it's almost like the colors and the lights and the images that are going to be around this are going to be representing the life in a city."