Paul McCartney Compares Kanye To Andy Warhol, Outrage Probably Ensues

Paul McCartney was a fan of Kanye West‘s 2010 masterpiece My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and its 2013 follow-up Yeezus, and then he ended up working with the polarizing superstar on “All Day,” “Only One” and “FourFiveSeconds.” McCartney previously explained how that partnership came about, even revealing that members of his camp initially thought it would be a bad idea to work with West. And in a new interview, the former Beatle elaborates on Kanye’s creative process, comparing him to the legendary Andy Warhol.

“I didn’t know his system,” Macca tells Rolling Stone about first linking up with Ye. “I’d heard things like, ‘He’s got a room full of guys working on riffs, and he walks around going, ‘I like that one.’ It reminded me of Andy Warhol, these artists who use students to paint their backgrounds and things. It’s a well-used technique. I thought, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to fit into that, but let’s see.'”

Though he stopped short of calling West a genius in the interview, McCartney praised him as a “great artist” who does some “really innovative stuff.”

Props to Paul McCartney for being one of the good guys, one of the members of his vaunted classic rock generation who actually embraces hip-hop and genres that may not work with the established “authentic” instruments and sounds. Unlike NIMBY curmudgeons like Don Henley.