Late Registration - Recording

Recording

West took over a year and devoted two million dollars towards the construction of Late Registration. The majority of the recording sessions for the album took place at Sony Music Studios in New York City and at The Record Plant in Hollywood, California. He began working in the studio on his second effort immediately after he finished touring with Usher on the R&B singer's The Truth Tour. By November 2004, West had completed nearly seventy-five percent of the album. However he felt unsatisfied with its outcome and in March of the following year, he brought in Jon Brion, which drastically altered the project's direction.

The album's recording sessions between West and Brion were largely experimental and exploratory, with the two experimenting with a broad spectrum of sounds. West would construct a song's basic structure, bringing in basic samples, drum beat programming and occasionally unfinished rap verses. After brainstorming over the myriad of musical avenues it could be taken, he would then select from a variety of unique instruments that Brion provided (and played) and attempt to incorporate their distinctive sonancy into the song's texture. West elaborated that while configuring Late Registration, he envisioned the creation of a film; visualizing the songs as scenes, outlining each in such a way that they efficiently convey their respective social or introspective context, and ensuring that all synchronized perfectly within the fabric of the complete set. This sentiment was shared by Jon Brion who went further to explain, "He thinks in frequency ranges. I can recognize when someone sees music architecturally, which is how I work. I see it as a spatial thing: left to right, front to back, up and down. It's animated and it's moving in real time. Kanye has that. He tries things out until it fits, until it sits where it is supposed to sit and everything has the correct emotional function. He has real instincts like any great record-maker."

Aside from Brion co-helming the overall project, Late Registration also expresses a diverse assembly of collaborations for its individual tracks. West chose his guest artists based on the effect each of their voices had on him when he heard them, citing the serene vocals of Adam Levine, the trademark sound of Brandy, and the superb lyricism of Lupe Fiasco and Paul Wall as primary examples. Adam Levine, lead vocalist of the Californian pop rock band Maroon 5 is featured on the album's opening track, "Heard 'Em Say." The two had previously collaborated when Maroon 5 commissioned West to produce a remix for "This Love" and later developed a friendship while sitting together on a flight to Rome for the 2004 MTV Europe Music Awards. While playing songs from his second album on his iPod for him during the flight, West came across the demo for "Heard 'Em Say" to which Levine added a R&B hook he had recently written and thought was perfect for it. The track was recorded quickly right after the 47th Grammy Awards ceremony, as Levine only had a couple of free hours available for time in the studio, and Brion was able to translate the two compositions in a matter of hours.

Though many surmised that West conceived "Gold Digger" after watching Jamie Foxx's Oscar-winning portrayal of Ray Charles in the biographical film Ray, he had actually recorded the song long before the movie was even developed. West originally produced and recorded the song in Ludacris's home in Atlanta, Georgia for Shawnna's 2004 debut album Worth Tha Weight and had written the chorus from a female first-person viewpoint. However, for reasons unknown, Shawnna passed on the beat. Not wanting to let it go to waste, West decided to write the two verses for the song himself, this time from a male's point-of-view. About a year later, right before "Gold Digger" was set to be released, West decided to add a third verse and in a week the new song was recorded and mastered at Sony Music Studios in New York. The idea of employing Jamie Foxx specifically to sing an interpolation of Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman" in place of its initial sample did in fact arise from West seeing Ray with his friend John Mayer. Foxx's vocals were recorded over many takes; one version, he sang from start to finish, but the track was retracted as his performance didn't coincide well with the song's instrumentation. After recording another version, Jamie decided to re-record it once more as he felt it contained too many explicit lyrics. Once the track was in place, it was layered with additional instruments provided by Brion and individually selected by West. By the end of their very first studio session together, the pair had completed the basic tracks for final version of "Gold Digger."

Houston-based rapper Paul Wall appears alongside West and his G.O.O.D. Music label-mate GLC on "Drive Slow." The two had met while posing at for a photo shoot in an August issue of King magazine in a special spread titled "Coming Kings". West visited Houston two weeks later and the pair soon built up a friendship. Eventually, West offered Wall an open spot on his album which he immediately accepted and the track was recorded in Los Angeles. West had originally wanted Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. to appear on the track, but she opted out of the appearance due to a busy schedule. "My Way Home" is performed by West's close friend and G.O.O.D. Music associate Common, whose sixth studio album Be was being produced and recorded by West simultaneously with Late Registration. Certain tracks West originally crafted for Be that Common passed on subsequently ended up on his second album.

While the original version of "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" featured West as the sole performer, he decided to record a remix to the song which included guest verse provided by Jay-Z—who had come out of retirement from rapping—after learning of the horrific civil war in Sierra Leone financed by conflict diamonds. Both the original and remix versions of "Diamond from Sierra Leone" appear on the album, with the former included as a bonus track. The song contains live drums played by French film director Michel Gondry who had happened to visit the studio on a day Brion set up a drum kit. Incidentally, Gondry had directed Eternal Sunshine and would later go on to direct the first version of the music video for "Heard 'Em Say." According to Jay-Z, West mixed "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" about fourteen times before he felt comfortable to release it as the album's lead single. The recording also experienced delay when West and Brion were required to wait two weeks to rent the harpsichord that they used for percussion on the song.

West managed to record a verse provided by Queensbridge rap artist Nas—one of his idol rappers—for the track "We Major" without alerting Jay-Z, who at the time was locked in a feud with Nas. G.O.O.D, music labelmate Really Doe also appears on the track, delivering its elongated chorus. West later admitted that part of the main reason he engendered the song was as an attempt to dismantle the feud between the MCs, which the two did later that very same year. Although the tribute song "Hey Mama", dedicated to his mother Donda West, appears on the 2005 album, West had recorded it long before he had found fame, as early as 2000. Brion ran into some obstruction while conducting a twenty-piece orchestra for "Celebration", as its musicians found themselves giggling at West's humorous lyrics which hampered their playing. It was also on the track that West and Brion had some minor discord; Brion initially layered it with keyboard arrangements, only for West to remove his keys along with the beat and completely reconfigure the entire song in such a way that its verses are built around the rhythm formed by his vocals and Brion's arrangements arrive during the choruses. Brion later lightheartedly compared the indecision surrounding the construction of the track to that of Prince's famous last-minute removal of the bass line from "When Doves Cry."