Paul McCartney has discussed his collaboration with Kanye West on the 'All Day' and 'FourFiveSeconds'. Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 programme, Mastertapes. The former Beatle described Yeezie as a "monster" but also a "great guy".
He discussed the creative process they went. The pair sat around as McCartney strummed guitar chords and Kanye recorded everything on his phone. He didn't hear anything from the rapper for several months until he "got this record that was like a Rihanna song". It was a sped up version of one of his riffs with his vocals speed up to squeak out the line "I find a mystery". "That's me! I loved it!", McCartney said on the radio programme. "You work with him [Kanye]. You leave it for a little while, let it marinate and just hope he gets back to you".
"We never appeared to write a song. A lot of what we did was just telling each other stories", the bassist said. For finished version of the track 'All Day' Kanye used a melody line McCartney played on guitar and made it "seriously urban".
McCartney also decided to disregard those who advised him to disassociate himself with the release of the track, including Oprah Winfrey, due to the repeated use of the n-word in the lyrics. “People like Oprah, who are a little conservative about that stuff, she says, ‘You shouldn't do it, even black people shouldn't use that word.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but it's Kanye!".
He said the reason he stood by the song was, "he's talking about an urban generation that uses that word in a completely different way. It's the context". Mastertapes will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 this Saturday, May 28 at 10am.