‘FourFiveSeconds’ was a single credited to Rihanna, Kanye West and Paul McCartney, released in early 2015.
The song was McCartney’s second released collaboration with West, and his first to feature Rihanna. The two men previously released the song ‘Only One’, which was credited to Kanye West ft Paul McCartney.
‘FourFiveSeconds’ was recorded at Jungle City Studios in New York City, Windmark Recording in Santa Monica, California, and No Name Studios in Mexico, and was mixed at Larabee Studios in Los Angeles.
A video for ‘FourFiveSeconds’ was directed by Dutch photographers Inez and Vinoodh, and filmed in New York City in late December 2014.
Kanye came up with the idea of doing just some real street, denim, all-American-type look. Denim never goes out of style; it’s classic, it’s iconic, just like the fucking Beatles.
Rihanna, McCartney and West performed ‘FourFiveSeconds’ for the first time at the 57th Grammy Awards on 8 February 2015, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. It was also performed on a number of dates of McCartney’s Out There tour in the same year.
The release
‘FourFiveSeconds’ was posted on Rihanna’s website on 24 January 2015, and was released as a digital download on the same day on the iTunes store. It was the first single from Anti, her eighth studio album.
The song reached number four on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. McCartney broke a record for the longest time between top 10 singles, with a 29-year gap between his previous top 10. It also became his first top five hit in 31 years, the previous one being ‘Say Say Say’, his 1983 collaboration with Michael Jackson.
‘FourFiveSeconds’ reached number one on the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, and topped the charts in Australia, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Sweden. It went top three in Canada, France and the United Kingdom.
I notice many if not most Macca fans really diss his working with kayne, who though is probably mentally off, is a genius engineer and who has worked across many musical genres and who was at the forefront of hip hop. I am the exception to those other fans I guess as I thought this song was phenomenal and thought Rhianna was extraordinary as well. The video and song are also past cool IMHO. I’m not surprised this song charted so high on some charts, as there’s multiple charts especially these days. The other kayne tune I think Macca used part also…I can’t remember on what….perhaps even a song or part of a song on the Rupert boot from the Rupert film. Paul and even John were far more open minded about music than many of their fans as in the mid seventies they each said they loved disco and paul went to discos…”goodnight tonight” anyone?