Friends (Francis and the Lights song)
"Friends" is a song by American music project Francis and the Lights featuring Bon Iver and uncredited contributions from Kanye West. The song was released as a single on July 7, 2016, accompanied by a music video featuring Francis Farewell Starlite, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and Kanye West.[1]
"Friends"
July 7, 2016
3:09
KTTF Music
- Aaron Lammer
- Francis Farewell Starlite
- BJ Burton
- Rostam Batmanglij
- Justin Vernon
- BJ Burton
- Francis Farewell Starlite
- Justin Vernon
- Rostam Batmanglij
- Aaron Lammer
- Ariel Rechtshaid
- Benny Blanco
- Cashmere Cat
- Kanye West
The song was sampled in Chance the Rapper's song "Summer Friends" from his 2016 mixtape Coloring Book.[2] "Friends" was sampled in "Summer Friends" before it was officially released independently as a single by Francis and the Lights.
Red Bull named it as the 15th best song of 2016.[3]
Francis and the Lights, Vernon and West collaborated again in 2019 on the song "Take Me to the Light."[4]
Music video[edit]
A music video for "Friends" was released on July 7, 2016.[5] The video was directed by Jake Schreier.[6] Knowing each other since childhood, Francis and Schreier have been making single-take, minimalist performance videos since 2008.[6] They wanted to do the next iteration of what they had been doing before.[6] In a 2016 interview, Schreier said, "We had never done a synchronized dance in a video or really had other protagonists in the video, so that's what we wanted to add to this one."[6]
Pitchfork named it as the 18th best music video of 2016.[7] NPR named it as one of the best music videos of 2016.[8]