The-Dream recalls a hilarious moment while working with Kanye West.
The-Dream has worked with various top artists in his decades-old legendary career, and most recently the singer-producer contributed to Beyonce’s “Break My Soul“, the first single off her come-back album “RENAISSANCE.” The North Carolina born made an appearance on Nile Rodgers’ Deep Hidden Meaning Radio show on Apple Music, where he talked about Kanye West falling asleep during the “All of the Lights” studio session.
“’All of the Lights,’ oh man, wow, ‘All of the Lights,’” he says. “I was doing 4 in New York for [Beyonce]. We were working on 4 and Kanye happened to come by the studio. And Ye didn’t know I was there and he is like, ‘Oh, happy you’re here. I got something I want you to listen to and see if you can put a hook on this thing.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, cool. Let me hear it.’ And this track came on. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s crazy.’ I knew instantly exactly what I wanted to do, instantly.”
“So, we got the booth working, brought the engineer down, recorded. And after the first take, which ended up being the song that you hear now, he said, ‘Nah, nah, nah, nah, try another one.’ Like, ‘Okay, all right.’ Got another one. ‘Oh, try another one, Dream.’ It’s like, ‘Okay.’ I got to like number eight of the song I did. I look out, Kanye West is asleep. And I’m like, I’m looking through the glass like, ‘Yo, is he asleep?’ [Beyonce’s] like, ‘Yeah, he’s kind of knocked out.’ I’m like, ‘What?’”
He continued, “She’s like, ‘Actually, Dream, the first hook, that was the one.’ I was like, ‘I knew it. I knew that was the one.’ And so, that ended up being the one that Rihanna sings to this day. But that was so hilarious. I’m on idea number eight. He’s been asleep since idea number three.”
West said in a 2013 interview with The Breakfast Club that the song took two years to complete and discussed the song’s genesis and process. “‘All The Lights’ is a futurist song that started out as a Jeezy record with horns on it, then we put in another bridge, then Dream wrote the hook, then Rihanna sang it, and by the time you got it, it was to the level of like, the Nike Flyknit or something like that.”
“All of the Lights” is one of Ye’s greatest hits, and was released as the fourth single from his fifth studio album, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” in 2010. The record won Grammy Awards for Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration and was nominated for Song of the Year at the 54th Grammy Awards. The song went RIAA certified quintuple platinum in 2020.
