On February 8, 2016, six days before releasing his sixth studio album and two weeks after declaring it finished, Kanye West started doing what he often did during this time: tweeting.
During a flurry of posts, Kanye revealed that his upcoming album—initially titled So Help Me God, then SWISH, then WAVES—now had a new “secret title.” The next day, he tweeted a photo of a studio with the words “TLOP” and asked fans to solve the acronym. “Anybody who can figure out the title gets tickets to Season 3 and free Yeezys,” he wrote.
A random kid from New Jersey guessed correctly: The Life of Pablo. In a way, the rollout captured the exact feeling of the Pablo era—a series of off-the-cuff bursts of creativity, publicly and communally workshopped before the largest possible audience, where the line between intentional messaging and semi-ironic improvisation was impossible to distinguish.
That chaos mirrored the album’s creation, a global affair with recording sessions in Punta Mita, Mexico; Los Angeles; and New York. Much like the storied My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy sessions in Hawaii, Ye assembled an extraordinary collection of pop music talent. But while the Hawaiian sessions leaned heavily on rappers and hip-hop producers, Pablo reflected a more expansive approach. Yes, Swizz Beatz, Havoc, Pusha T, and Chance the Rapper were there—but so were Hudson Mohawke, DJ duo DJDS, gospel legend Kirk Franklin, and beloved session musician Greg Phillinganes.
The differences between those two albums, released six years apart, illustrate the dramatic evolution in Kanye's process. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a highly polished, maximalist, ’90s-boom bap-inspired piece of craftsmanship, while The Life of Pablo feels more like a Ron G tape: a loose-gripped ride through competing styles and sounds, a mishmash of ideas, themes, and musical transitions whose most well-defined throughline is its resistance to cohesion. Song transitions are jolting, references come by the dozen, and the rapping is less structured and traditional—more improvisational and off-the-cuff. Lyrically and conceptually, it creates the effect of a party for the senses—prefiguration of what was to come in hip-hop.
The first quarter of Pablo includes an extended sermon from Kirk, a line about a bleached asshole, a random inclusion of “Panda,” from one-hit-wonder Desiigner (which, during the Madison Square Garden listening session, led to much confusion about whether or not Future was part of the coterie of guests), and a Sister Nancy “Bam Bam” sample. After that, there are song titles that read like studio notes (“Freestyle 4,” “FML”), back-to-back interludes, and a collection of previously circulating tracks tacked onto the end like a bonus EP. It’s joyful, deranged, rude, juvenile, and occasionally self-aware.
By the time Kanye actually released The Life of Pablo, it had been the longest stretch of his career without an album—971 days—marked by a bumpy, stop-and-go rollout that included everything from ballads with Paul McCartney to the much hyped performance of “All Day” to, and I can’t stress this enough, hundreds of tweets updating fans on the process, mixed with random bits of motivational self-talk (“I need a room full of mirrors so I can be surrounded by winners”) and random acts of bitching (“Fuck any game company that puts in‑app purchases on kids games!!!”).
The Life of Pablo premiered on February 11 at the famed Madison Square Garden, during the Yeezy Season 3 show. Despite Ye claiming weeks earlier that the album was finished, it wasn’t. It was released three days later, on Valentine’s Day, exclusively on Tidal. And hours after its release, Ye tweeted “ima fix wolves,” responding to criticism of the changes of a song that had been teased years earlier.
True to the album’s chaotic process, he kept tinkering: adding ad-libs to “Ultralight Beam,” tweaking lyrics on “Famous,” re-recording a verse on “Waves,” restoring Vic Mensa’s vocals to “Wolves,” removing Frank Ocean from that same track and giving him his own interlude, adding “Saint Pablo” as the new closer. There were so many adjustments that soon after, the album was being described by Kanye and Def Jam as “living art,”a project that would evolve over time.
On “I Love Kanye” Ye mocks criticism he’s received over the years—how “the old Kanye” lost the soul of The College Dropout, replaced by spectacle, expensive clothing product, and pretentious attempts at avant-garde music. Ten years later, the skit reads like the end of an era—the last real fragment of the original “Ye experience.” By that fall, Ye would infamously embrace Donald Trump, and his struggles with mental health would manifest in public outbursts.
Even as his love for themed rollouts and superstar collaborations continued—the “five albums in five weeks” Wyoming era, the Sunday Service sermons, the Donda sessions—The Life of Pablo was Ye’s last true classic album.
The Life of Pablo was a collective effort, with over 100 people contributing in various capacities. For the album’s 10-year anniversary, we reached out to artists and creatives who were there for the chaos to hear their stories about recording the masterpiece.
CyHi the Prynce
Role: Songwriter
The whole LA was in those sessions, from Chris Brown, Teyana [Taylor], Kid Cudi. It was just a good time. And I think that was the last time I seen Ye with a notepad—actually writ[ing] down lyrics.
We started at Paramount Studio. We had, I think, both locations booked out. I remember everybody in separate rooms: Mike Dean in one room; myself in one room with all the writers. I was kind of leading that room. That was the last hoorah of everybody together.
On the lyrics side, it was a more fun atmosphere. Usually most of the albums are pretty much a serious thing, but I think that album was about having fun in the studio, laughing, playing, getting those type of feelings out. Usually Ye is very adamant about the lyrics, the music, very meticulous, very on top of everyone. But with that album, he was in more of a free-flowing phase of creating.
The last week, I really remember just locking down. I had to go through all the lyrics and mark out the ones he didn't like and then present it back to him. I know what lines he gets excited about. So I scribbled off the ones he wasn't as excited about. During that time, I was like the thesaurus or the dictionary. I was his assistant when it came to writing. So he would be chanting something, or he would need to know the meaning of something or the best way to say something. I was like, “Well, try it like this.” I damn near co-wrote every song with him. We would just be sitting there and the beat's playing, and he would be like, “OK, that's the right way. I'm going to write that down.”
As we are doing that, critiquing each line, he would write it down, and then he might relay it on different mics. A lot of the things he be doing, he'd be freestyling. I tell people this all the time. You might be with him for a year, but nine months out of the year you're just riding around with him. And by the time he start writing the situations, you would know what he is trying to say.
I would hear that “she just bleached her asshole” part of “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1.” I never heard of nobody bleaching their asshole. So that was the first time I was like, “What does that mean?” I remember I seen girls listening to it and exploding with laughter. And I asked one of the girls, “What does that mean?” That's when I started learning about Calabasas and Lululemon and what the Hollywood girls be on and the maintenance that they do to keep themselves up.
Malik Yusef
Role: Advisor
I didn’t start [working on the album] until February 1st because Kanye is notorious for starting albums without me, but also always finishing it with me. I was flying from Chicago to LA, and when I landed my intern, Danny, picked me up and was like, “Man, this shit with Ye is too crazy.” I was like, “What?” He’s like, “Man, Wiz [Khalifa] and Ye got into it on Twitter.” And I’m a Taylor Gang, but I’m also G.O.O.D. Music. G.O.O.D. Music is the label, Taylor Gang is the mob for me.
So I called Ye. I’m like, “Hey bro, you misunderstanding what Wiz is saying. We love you, bro.” I then called Wiz. He’s like, “Man, he acting like an old head, bro.”
We started getting this squashed. And then Ye said, “Hey, can you come to the studio? I’m working.” I was like, “Is you working again without me, nigga?” With Ye, sometimes he wants to do what a little brother want—to do it by himself, which is cool, but I’m always there.
So I came to the studio. But I didn’t like [the album.] He said, “I want you to love it.” I said, “I hate it.” He’s like, “Well, let’s break everything apart.”
Then he said, “Man, can you call Wiz now?” So I called Wiz’s phone. We looked at my phone together from the studio. They squashed it at the end. That just made my spirit feel calm. It was getting to the point where it’s LA shit. I’m Black Stone and I got Stones out there, and Wiz is a real Crip. So it was getting to that level where we didn’t want no shit like that to pop.
[I’m working on] everything. Songwriting, production, lyrics, every single thing. Now, me and Kanye do have a contingency about me suggesting drums. He doesn’t start with perfect drums. So whenever he plays me something, he’s like, “I know the drums ain’t where I want them to be yet.” So before I even say it, he cuts me off.
I work with all the producers, I work with all the engineers, mixing, mastering. I work with all the songwriters. I work with all the lyricists. I make up hooks myself. I’m servicing, man. I don’t have to tell you people what part was mine. All of ours, in my opinion.
You got to understand that College Dropout Ye was a very different human than Pablo Ye. And then even more so than all the Bully sessions we’ve done. I’ve been working on it for almost two years. I don’t even know if one of my lyrics is going to make it, or one of my hooks, or anything. There’s no way to know.
One day I was like, "It's about time for dinner.” I’d been there all morning; I think I got there at eight or something like that. I see Ye and I was like, “Man, it’s time to eat.” He was like, “The card is off.” I was like, “Let’s get ’em turned back on.” And he’s like, “No, the card is off. I’m $80 million in debt.”
I’m like, I might be able to scrap you up a couple of those millions in a couple days, but your wife rich. And he’s like, “I’m not going to ask my bitch for no money.” I said, “That’s the person you supposed to ask. What are you talking about? Why are you asking your friend from the South Side? Why are you telling your friend from the South Side? That ain’t nothing I could do about that, bro.”
And like I said, he called me too, after that. He came and said, “I asked her for the money, she gave it to me.” I have my own problems and issues with her. Obviously that’s just human nature. Her doing that was very demonstrative of her being in his corner and being an ally outside of being a wife and a mother.
Plain Pat
Role: Producer
It was a crazy time.
We worked on it for years, so it went through a bunch of different names. It's his album. He made it, he produced it, he did it all, but he put the culture on his back in a way.
[The album] started when he did “All Day,” which is going way back, and that was after he did the Paul McCartney stuff. We were at his crib, one of his old cribs in Hollywood, and French Montana was there with just a gang of beats, and they were just going through beats, going through beats, and just freestyling. And that's how “All Day” came about. And that's when he came up with the Swish title. And then French was supposed to executive produce it, and obviously none of that happened.
We were recording all over: we were in Mexico, we were in Paris for a while. But then it was this stretch of time when we were in LA [and] it was just chaos. We had the whole studio locked down, and everybody was coming by because they had to get on it. There's so many people on that record. It was really like the culture was speaking through him in a way.
There was direction by the time of that final stretch of a couple months or whatever. There were songs that, up until the day of the Madison Square Garden event, weren't even finished. “Father Stretch My Hands,” “FML,” and “Waves.” These things didn't even have drums up until the morning of the event.
By the week of the Garden, there were so many files, so many versions, so many raps. Just put and piece it all together. And that's what he did. We went through so many names. It was so many versions of the record, of the album. The name Pablo, he didn't even really make until a few weeks before. It was called The White Picket Fence. I think this is super early on, while we were still trying to figure out what we were even doing, because we did this one trip to Napa Valley, and we stayed in this guy's crib. He was the head of Pandora. He was some type of executive somewhere, and he let us use his crib to record. And yeah, we made a lot of progress there. It was a small group where we could just kind of vibe out, and he was going through personnel changes with his management and stuff at the time. So there was a lot of stress on him. But it was good. It was only a week or so. I think he did “FML” there.
There were just a lot of little things at [Kanye’s] pool house. Cudi hadn't talked [to Kanye] for a while, and then Cudi comes in and just lays down “Father Stretch My Hands” with no drums. I remember Drake came to the pool house and played us “Summer 16” before it was done and shit. It was like three in the morning, and he just comes in and plays this fucking crazy record and shit.
I can't remember exactly how Kendrick ended up on [“No More Parties in LA”]. I remember Ye had that beat for a while. I feel like maybe he was supposed to be on Dark Fantasy, and I think RZA kind of talked him out of it because of “No More Parties in LA,” and he was like, the people in LA might take that as a diss. He thought that the streets would take that as that would get him in trouble on the street. But obviously it had nothing to do with the streets. It was just more of a Hollywood kind of thing. So I think maybe that was part of it, to put Kendrick on it. He can't get more LA than that.
Havoc
Role: Producer
It was a quick phone call. "Hey, I'm working on this new project. Could you come down to my studio and help me work on the album.”
So I flew out to California, I went to his studio, and I remember him playing tracks that I sent him over the course of three or four years. I was surprised that he still had them or was even having them in mind.
Most of them was other tracks, but two of them actually made the album. One was “Famous.” There was another beat, but he just used the drums, and that was for “Real Friends.” Whenever I make beats, I always make beats as if I'm doing beats for me and Prodigy. If somebody is asking me to produce for them, they want something that sounds like Mobb Deep. I never really try to cater to the artist.
When I first heard “‘Famous,” he was writing to it. He didn't have any lyrics. He was like, doing the flow of what would later become actual words.
My contribution is really the main part of the beat. When I came back a couple of days later, I heard Rihanna on the hook. So I was like, "Oh shit…he taking this shit serious." I was like, "Yeah, Kanye, yeah!” I'm in there amping him up. Not in a million years [would I image Rhanna on a Mobb Deep beat].
I love my beats, but it's something that I probably wouldn't have done. And I consider myself a life student. So it's like when he did that, I was like, "Shit, maybe I might try doing something like that later on with one of my tracks." I appreciate it because it kind of took it to another level. It kind of made it a little bit more worldly.
He's very selective. When I was there, though he had already picked what would make the album, he would have me work on more tracks because you never know with this guy; he might use it five years later. Recently, I did a track—I don't want to blow up the spot and say it just in case if it don't ever come out. But I will say, he's working on a project, I believe, with Travis Scott and a few of my tracks have made the cut so far.
I do remember one time being in there when there was a few producers in there, and it feels like a competition going on. I'm not insecure, because I already know what I bring to the table. You feel the competition, but you more so feel it from their end.
Charlie Heat
Role: Producer
I really, really liked [“Facts”]. We were just doing a bunch of versions. And I think either I asked or he asked [to remix the song]—I can't remember who asked who to do it. I knew he was feeling it when I played it for him, but next thing you know, we in Madison Square and he's playing it. I'm like, "Oh, OK. We got action." And then I was chilling with my girl at the time and my phone was getting blown up. They're like, "Yo, send your tag.”
I'm pretty sure “Waves” was a me and Kanye beat. That was the first beat we ever made together in person. I just pulled up on him, man. And he had this crazy sample chop. I don't know how much I could talk about that for sampling reasons. And we cooked it up. We had to switch it up a few times or whatever [due to sample clearances], but that's when [Hudson Mohawke] and Mike Dean did they thing and went super, super crazy.
It was crazy and surreal, but I never really felt like I didn't fit in. I knew I was supposed to be there. I think it's the preparation, the time I put in, and me understanding that it's lucky. I can't be scared of a moment that I prepped for and I was lucky to have.
I'm not going to say who, but a few of my favorite producers of all time were all in the same room and they were just running the original “Waves” song back to back to back, six times—hyped. I was just sitting there and it was like Kanye, said person, said person, and said person, people I grew up on just running my beat back eight times. I was just sitting there like, "What is going on? This is crazy."
Steven Victor
Role: COO of G.O.O.D. Music
In 2016, I was COO of G.O.O.D. Music, running the record label while I was doing A&R. We were always close, but he entrusted me with a bunch of shit, so I was always with him or talking with him or, you know what I’m saying? We had just signed Desiigner, so it was in the midst of that. When I heard “Father Stretch My Hands,” it was late November or early December, I thought it was Future. [Ye] played it for me when we were in the studio.
The crazy part about it, I had heard the Desiigner song before, because my man had played it for me in New York, and he was like, “Yo, you should sign this kid. He got a song that's popping.” I dismissed it. Then I went to LA and Kanye played me the song. I was like, “Oh, that’s Future,” and he was like, “Nah, that's not Future. That's this kid from Brooklyn. We should sign him. Go find him.”
He sounded like Future mixed with Uncle Murda. I was like, “How old is this nigga?” The voice was so deep.
The original version of “Panda” was being played on Power 105 and Hot 97 at the time. A small section of people knew. People from Brooklyn knew that was Desiigner. It was also a big moment for the city, for New York.
When we were working in Hawaii, it was so controlled. It's something that I was used to. He's in the studio, he is working on music, people are coming in, people are coming out, but it's in a controlled environment, in a recording studio, the typical way albums get made.
For [Pablo], it was like…I remember one night, the song where he raps, “People say I'm going crazy on Twitter, my wife's best advice was to stay low”—he made that song fucking that night. We're in the studio—it wasn't even a studio, it was in a room. He raps the verse and he's like, “Yo, let's go to the club. I'm going to go play this at the club.” He had just finished recording the verse and it's crazy. We're driving to the club and he's driving and he has this fucking laptop on his lap, and he's editing the song while he's driving, while we're going to the nightclub.
Anthony Kilhoffer
Role: Engineer
They pick a place to go, and then we just get a bunch of rooms. That was still in the time of Mike Dean, Noah Goldstein, and myself playing. It was just like a continuation of the Yeezus album, but it wasn't in Paris.
Every time you get there, and with all the new arrivals, you have a meeting and [discuss]what the vision for the project is that he has, and he breaks down what he has, what he wants the product to be, what is acceptable for production pieces, elements, the sonic. It's like a mood board.
I think it was a lot more tied in with fashion. There's this time there was more than just music going on. Previously, there might've been just more of a focus on just the album. Now there were boards of clothes. I guess they are mood boards, and then what you take from the texture of those clothes and the colors, and then developing that into sonics. Virgil's around for this big time too. It was just getting your head around what the scope of the project would be.
I played guitar on “Famous”—that’s probably the first song I worked on. You contribute parts and you take it in the direction that you think it should go. Everything is each producer trying to take over the song, basically, and make it their own vision so that they can claim their copyright, that they produced the song. You don't want to go in there and change the drums. Usually it starts with a sample, something that Mr. West has figured out. He's put his creative into it, integrated. And then how do you develop that idea sonically? So the original idea is always there; it's just how do you rebuild around it?
For “Fade,” I gave him that sample during Dark Twisted. It had lingered for a while. I think Benji B brought that back up. But I mean, I would put different things in the ASR 10, trying to get samples on the record, give him things to chop up.
I found the sample on YouTube. We were trying to find unique sounds online because you couldn't really go record shopping in Hawaii. I mean, you could probably, but I don't know. There's not a lot on the island.
It's a great body of work. It seems a little, I don't know if I would say not as cohesive as the other bodies of work—perhaps. I think you have to think at the time too, that's when Travis and a lot of these people had all the end of the song was completely different than the beginning of the song. What was dictating popular culture musically at the time. There was often songs that had two or three parts.
Nobody does that anymore.
Vic Mensa
Role: Guest star
The thing about Kanye is that the creative process is so much more than the studio.
I met Kanye in 2014 or 2015. [Om'Mas Keith] from [Sa-Ra], amongst many other things, introduced me to him based on some music. I played him a bunch of my music I was working on at the time, played him a song that would become “U Mad.” He played me a bunch of shit that would become Pablo, and “Wolves” was one of those records that he played.
The first day I met him, I went in this little room in the corner with just me and an engineer and did my part on “Wolves,” and he just loved it. And I was writing some things with him and helping him with different songs, and he was like, “Yo, I'm going to Paris tomorrow. Just come with me.” So I just started running around the world with him. Obviously we were in the studio a lot, but it was as much the fashion shows and the just IRL moments.
Doing the “Wolves” bridge, that was just one of those moments when the inspiration struck. It was like a flow-state moment. And that happened to be the first time that I was in the studio with him, and he wanted me to try something on that record. Then he had to see afterwards. I was always trying to get him to fucking put words to the mumbles in his shit. I was always like, “Man, he's fucking putting a ceiling on this song, and he's preventing this song from being as great as it can be because he's not putting words to those mumbles.”
I came to realize that he was doing something very innovative. It was free jazz. It was like abstraction in a medium that is known for precision. There are not many hip-hop songs that don't actually say words. Hip-hop is the most verbose art form in history. And even though “Wolves” is not a hip-hop song, it's from a hip-hop artist and a hip-hop album.
Pablo, honestly, took time for me to really appreciate. I think I was just so close to it. And then also was in the midst of times when Kanye and Hov wasn't all the way getting along, and I was embroiled in some of that. And then I didn't understand him not filling in a lot of those lyrics and that abstraction. And I mean some of the just more crass [lyrics]. I was just like, Man, you can rap better than this, bro.
But what I didn't realize in the moment that I came to understand was it wasn't about that. I mean, because you're not going to rap better than Dark Fantasy. What I feel like he really did with Pablo was he continued to trailblaze. He continued to innovate and not only created new sounds, but new formats even.
Obviously I wanted to be on [“Wolves.”] I think there were things going on with Frank Ocean's involvement and just maybe different conditional preferences of the different artists involved, in addition to the fact that I wasn't really spending that much time with him by the time the album came out, and the him and Jay-Z thing was kind of sticky. And I was somewhere in the middle of that. Malik Yusef really fought for me to be on that song. And it was like the best version of the song. People had already loved it. It was just the right fit. It was an important part to the song. And so I'm glad it came out the way it did.