Paul McCartney Initially Didn’t Want to Tell Anyone About His Kanye West Collaboration

Paul McCartney and Kanye West were a surprisingly successful duo when they collaborated in the mid-2010s. The duo produced three songs together that were all successful. While both are considered titans in the industry, McCartney says he initially didn’t want anyone to know about his collaboration with West. 

Paul McCartney and Kanye West first met in 2008

Paul McCartney and Kanye West first met at the 2008 European MTV Awards in Liverpool. In an interview with GQ, McCartney recalls the two had gone through breakups and bonded over this, with West playing him one of his songs. 

“I’d just gone through my divorce, and I was kind of a little bit raw from it, and I said something to him about it, and he’d just broken up with someone, and he just pulled out his phone and played this great little track—I don’t even remember what it’s called, but it’s one of his famous ones. So I sort of liked him, and I liked this tune. I’m not sure what he was doing there—I think he might have been hanging out with Bono.”

McCartney did not want people to find out about his collaboration with West

In 2014, Paul McCartney received a surprise message from his manager that Kanye West wanted to write songs with him. The former Beatle agreed but wanted it to be kept secret. So, the two met for two or three afternoons at a bungalow behind the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles. 

McCartney said he found these writing sessions to be “puzzling.” The sessions consisted of them telling stories, with McCartney occasionally playing his guitar or the piano and Kanye recording everything on his iPhone.

“I had my bass ready in case we were going to get more serious. I thought we might actually sit down and write a song in the way I was used to writing a song—actually craft something there and then. It turned out we were creating an ‘ingredient pool,’ which is how he does it.”

Kanye later offered to produce McCartney’s 2014 album Egypt Station, but the British artist rejected the offer. He thought about it, but he wanted to take it in a different direction than Kanye.

“Yeah. And then I thought, no, I kind of knew what direction I wanted to go in,” McCartney said. “And I knew that would be very different from where Kanye would go with it.”

McCartney and Kanye produced several hit songs together

Through their collaboration, West and McCartney produced three songs together: “Only One,” “All Day,” and “FourFiveSeconds” with Rihanna. While all of these songs were successful in their own way, “FourFiveSeconds” became a massive hit for every artist involved. 

It peaked at number four on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming McCartney’s first top-five hit since 1992. “FourFiveSeconds” was also Kanye’s first top-five hit since “Heartless” in 2009, and it earned Rihanna her 23rd top 10 single, tying Mariah Carey for most top 10 singles on the chart. The three artists came together to perform the song at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in 2015.