Daft Punk Co-Wrote Kanye West’s ‘Black Skinhead’

Electronic music duo Daft Punk helped Kanye West write “Black Skinhead,” one of the first singles off of his upcoming album Yeezus.

Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter are listed as co-composers of the song, which West performed live on Saturday Night Live last month. West dropped by the Paris studio where they were recording, and the duo took a break to work on music for his next album.

“We had a combination of live drums and programmed drums going,” Bangalter said in a cover story for the June 6 issue of Rolling Stone. “And Kanye was rapping over it,” de Homem-Christo added.

“Not even rapping, more like screaming in this very primal way,” Bangalter corrected. “Kanye feels comfortable around us, so he allows himself to be vulnerable.”

“He’s radical in the choices he makes,” said de Homem-Christo. “He doesn’t give a f*ck.”

West and Daft Punk had actually worked together prior to “Black Skinhead.” West used a vocal sample from the duo’s song “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” on “Stronger,” which was the second single off of his third studio album, Graduation. The pair also received a songwriting credit and appeared in the video.

The duo were recently embroiled in a bit of a scandal when a picture of them playing beer pong, without their ubiquitous helmets, was posted on Facebook by another electronic music duo, the Knocks. The photo was quickly taken down, and the Knocks posted another message: “Guess we weren’t supposed to post that pic :X”

While there are certainly pictures of Daft Punk without their helmets on, the pair seem to prefer the privacy and mystery that surrounds them.

The robots are famous, we’re not. We’re allowed to have a normal life like regular people and interact normally with people without so much of a fake situation,” de Homem-Christo said. “That’s really important to us.”

[Photo credit: DFree / Shutterstock.com]