Michael Bolton Annotated Kanye West’s “Never Let Me Down”
“And the song turned out beautifully,” he says.
Michael Bolton is the latest big (and perhaps unlikely) name to try his hand at Genuis' rap lyric annotation game. For his first mark, Bolton has honed in on Kanye West's "Never Let Me Down." The College Dropout track samples Blackjack's "Maybe It's the Power of Love," and Bolton says that he's "totally happy" with how it turned out. He writes:
"When Kanye and Jay-Z's publishing reps reached out to me about clearing this sample, I was surprised and flattered
I wrote this song in the early 80s. If you told me back then that 20 years later it would have a second life in the work of two great hip hop artists, I would have called you crazy!
Happy as I was, I wanted to make sure that I was cool with the content of the song before giving the go-ahead. So I had them send me the lyrics. I read them, and I thought "I love this. It's great. What a positive message."
And the song turned out beautifully — I'm totally happy with it"
And if you told us twenty minutes ago that Bolton was a Rap Genius commenter, we would have called you crazy. But we're totally happy with it!
Lead Image: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty
