Bon Iver and Kanye West Now Besties
Justin Vernon will have vocals on Kanye West’s upcoming album
The Bon Iver fans out there might have heard by now – through Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, MTV, AVClub, Guardian, Paste, and several others – that Mr. Justin Vernon will have vocals on Kanye West’s upcoming album (Nov. 16 release). Yeah, THAT Kanye West. And yeah, it’s ridiculous. We’re going to go ahead and be “that guy” and tell you we knew about this months ago – but out of respect for the Bon Iver PR machine we dutifully kept our mouths shut. But now that your grandma is even talking about it, here’s the (abbreviated) recap.
Kanye calls up Justin. And in Justin’s words according to Pitchfork: “He was like, ‘I like how you sing so fearlessly. You don’t care how your voice sounds. It’d be awesome if you could come out to Hawaii and hear the track, and there’s some other s*** I think we could throw down on.’ I was just like, ‘Yeah, cool man!’ I surprised myself by not being nervous or apprehensive. I said, ‘When should I come out?’ And he was like, ‘How about tomorrow?’ ”
All told Justin goes there three times, for a total of about three weeks at Kanye’s crib in Hawaii. You know, the usual – eating breakfast, playing hoops, and talking about Avatar. Dudes like Nicki Minaj, John Legend, and Rick Ross were there, too. Justin laid down vocals on about 10 songs, collaborated on lyrics, and more. One song, Lost in the World is reportedly “a lock” for Kanye’s next album and has a sample from Vernon’s auto-tuned song Woods. So there you have it. No word yet on whether Kanye will be around this fall to hang out with Justin at the downtown Eau Claire farmers market.