Every artist has their own way of making music. The creative process is a little different for everyone, and that’s before you even think about genres. Oftentimes, those differences justify why genres shouldn’t mix. However, sometimes, there’s magic, differences and all.
This was true for Kanye West and Paul McCartney back in 2014. They’re both musical savants in their own right, but how those songs turn out seems a little different. You would never confuse “Hey Jude” with “Stronger” or “Here Comes The Sun” with “New Slaves”. However, together, they made the extremely underrated “FourFiveSeconds” with Rihanna.
For the Beatles legend, he just felt lucky to stretch out his wings and try something fresh with artists he otherwise wouldn’t expect to work with. “We ended up just talking a lot,” Paul McCartney recalled to DIY back in 2018. “I played a few little things and one of them ended up as ‘FourFiveSeconds’ with Rihanna. It’s more a question of me feeling lucky that these people are interested [in working with me] and think that I can bring something to it. For me, I feel great. I like diversity.”
The biggest takeaway McCartney had from the recording experience was just how different Kanye West approached the songwriting process. While the former would tinker around with songs on the guitar or piano, the latter was big on improvisation. For their session, Ye spent a lot of time looking at his then-wife Kim Kardashian.
How Kim Kardashian Inspired The Making of this Underrated Kanye West and Paul McCartney Song
“We had a method in our early days of The Beatles and with Wings that I used all the way through for writing songs. I would sit down with a guitar or at a piano and make it up and complete it. Then that’s it, you’ve done your song, and then you’re ready to roll and go in the studio,” Paul McCartney said of his process.
“With [West], it was much more made up as we went along – so much so that I didn’t even realize that I was making songs… I was tootling around on guitar, and Kanye spent a lot of time just looking at pictures of Kim [Kardashian] on his computer. I’m thinking, ‘Are we ever gonna get around to writing?!’” Paul McCartney continued.
What he didn’t realize was that Ye was conjuring up the song in his mind the entire time. He kept looking at Kardashian while he was listening and eventually knew what to do with McCartney’s strumming.
“It turns out he was writing. That’s his muse,” Paul McCartney said. “He was listening to this riff I was doing and obviously he knew in his mind that he could use that, so he took it, sped it up and then somehow he got Rihanna to sing on it. She’s a big favourite of mine anyway, so that just came without me lifting a finger.”
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