One of the most surprising collaborations last year was when rock legend Sir Paul McCartney, hip-hop star Kanye West, and songstress Rihanna teamed up for her single “FourFiveSeconds”, which peaked at number 18 in the UK charts.
McCartney appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Mastertapes and talked about what it was like to work with Kanye. He playfully refers to West as a “monster” and “a crazy guy who comes up with great stuff”.
West also uses McCartney’s melody for his follow up single “All Day”, and McCartney was impressed by the urban sound that West gave it. The melody was from an unreleased song McCartney wrote after being inspired by a Picasso painting in 1969.
In the song, the “N” word is repeated numerously by West, but McCartney, being musically-inclined to say the least, understood the man’s creative thinking and saw the word as a mere expression for the “urban generation”.
You can watch a clip from the show or view the entire thing for a limited time on BBC iPlayer. The audio version will be available on BBC Radio 4 at 10am on May 28.
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