It’s been a rough week for Kanye West. After a bizarre rant during one of his Saint Pablo Tour shows about Trump, Beyonce, Jay Z, and more, he cancelled the rest of his tour and has since checked into a hospital in Los Angeles. Today also serves as the sixth anniversary of one of his best albums, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
“All of the Lights” is the fourth track on the album and focuses on celebrities living out their personal problems in the public eye. One of the standout tracks on the project, it has contributions from 14 other artists including Alicia Keys, John Legend, The-Dream, Drake, Fergie, Kid Cudi, Elton John, Ryan Leslie, and Charlie Wilson. Rihanna is the sole credited feature on the track.
In annotation on Genius, The-Dream explains how he came up with the hook while in the midst of recording Beyoncé’s album 4:
After its release, Kanye said that he had worked for over two years on the song and included the work of so many different artists because he just couldn’t find “the one.” He’s called the song one of his greatest sonic landscapes.
“[Kanye] actually played his album to me, like, three months ago, and ‘All of the Lights,’ that was one of my favorite songs,” Rihanna told MTV News at the 2010 MTV Europe Music Awards. “So when he asked me to come up to the studio at 2 o'clock in the morning, I had to, because I loved it, I knew it was that song.”
You can read all the lyrics to MBDTF on Genius now.,
