Released March 2, 2015 Recorded 2014–15 Length 5:11 | Format Digital download Genre Hardcore hip hopdrill | |
Label GOODRoc-A-FellaDef Jam | ||
"All Day" is a single by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West. The song features Theophilus London, Allan Kingdom, and Paul McCartney and was produced by West, Puff Daddy, French Montana, Velous, and Charlie Heat. Initially leaked in August 2014, it was released on March 2nd, 2015 as a non-album single. "All Day" contains an interpolation from "Dance with Me" by Jamaican singer Noel Ellis. It received nominations for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance at the 58th Grammy Awards.
Contents
Background
The track originally leaked in August 2014, but Kanye continued to work on the track on and off until March 2015. The track was debuted live at the 2015 Brit Awards on February 26, 2015. Rolling Stone provided the first official stream of the track.
The song contains a sample of what has been confirmed by a representative of West as a re-recording of a song Paul McCartney wrote in 1969 that was inspired by a Pablo Picasso painting of a guitarist, which is supposedly titled: "Two Fingers & Whistling" or "When the Wind Is Blowing". The track was produced by upcoming producer, Velous, who made the skeleton of the instrumental on a friend's couch while watching Saturday Night Live. During an interview with MTV, he also said of French Montana’s involvement on the song: "...although French isn’t your typical “producer”, the ideas he brought to Kanye for the beat were worthy of co-production..." "All Day" featured McCartney's acoustic guitar playing, whistling and singing of the last verse. This song was the third McCartney/West collaboration to be commercially released.
Commercial performance
When "All Day" debuted at number 18 in the UK, it became West's second top-20 single of 2015; "FourFiveSeconds" peaked at number three in March 2015. Additionally, these songs became his first US top-20 singles since 2013's "Bound 2". In the United States, it debuted at number 15 on the Hot 100, selling 140,000 downloads in its first week. It was certified Gold in the US on 28 July 2015.
Live performances
West debuted the song live at the 2015 BRIT Awards with a number of US rappers and UK grime MC's including: Boy Better Know, Novelist, Q-Tip, Krept & Konan, Stormzy, Allan Kingdom, Theophilus London and Vic Mensa. The entourage held flamethrowers and wore all black. West was confirmed to perform last minute, the day before the awards took place. However, his performance was repeatedly muted throughout most of the track for those watching on television due to the extreme explicit language featured within the song's lyrics, with the use of nigga being repeatedly rapped live on ITV. The performance drew mixed reactions from the crowd, with presenters Ant & Dec joking about it afterwards, and divided opinions on social media; some criticising West's performance and some criticising how ITV dealt with the issue.
He also performed the song at the 2015 NBA Playoffs. West performed the track at Glastonbury with a sample of the Noel Ellis track "Dance With Me" used as the outro.