Oprah Warned Paul McCartney About His Kanye West ‘All Day’ Collaboration

Kanye West and Paul McCartney were an odd duo but created a few hit songs in the mid-2010s. However, not everyone was on board with this collaboration, and a few celebrities warned McCartney about working on these songs. Even Oprah told McCartney to approach the song “All Day” with caution. 

Paul McCartney and Kanye West created three songs together

According to an interview with GQ, Paul McCartney says he met Kanye West for the first time at the 2008 European MTV awards in Liverpool. McCartney recalls bonding with the rapper — now known as Ye — over his recent divorce. In 2014, McCartney received a message from his manager saying Kanye wanted to write a few songs with him. The two met secretly for two or three afternoons at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles. 

What came out of these sessions were three songs: “Only One,” “All Day,” and “FourFiveSeconds” with Rihanna. All these songs were successful, but “FourFiveSeconds” became a worldwide hit, earning McCartney his first top-five hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 in multiple decades. 

Paul McCartney was warned by Oprah about working on ‘All Day’

In an interview with BBC, McCartney addressed some backlash he faced for working on “All Day.” The backlash wasn’t due to working with Kanye but more due to the material. The song used the n-word several times, and many people urged the former Beatle not to be associated with a song that uses that word so frequently. One of those people who warned him was Oprah. 

“The lyrics…use the n-word a lot,” McCartney said. “The thing was about that when I got it, and people heard it, quite a few people said, ‘You can’t be connected with this. You know, there’s like 40 n-words.’ And people are gonna say, ‘Hey, man. You know, you shouldn’t do that.’ And 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,’ and he’s talking about an urban generation that uses that word in a completely different way.”

Other celebrities were not fans of the two artists collaborating

Oprah was not the only person to voice their displeasure with this collaboration. British artist Damon Albarn, best known for Gorillaz and Blur, called the two working together an “abusive collaboration” and sent a text to McCartney saying “beware” after he heard the news. Paul McCartney says he appreciates the respect Albarn showed him, but he doesn’t regret his decision to work with Kanye West

​​”I love the respect someone like Damon is attributing to me, but I’m not that fussed,” McCartney told GQ. “If I want to go somewhere else from where I normally go or where I’m expected to go, I’ll go. And if I enjoy it, that’s enough for me. The great thing is, all sorts of hysterical things come out of it. I mean, there’s a lot of people think Kanye discovered me. And that’s not a joke.”