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About

Genius Annotation

As opposed to the industrial, electronic influences found throughout Yeezus, this warm soulful track sees Kanye “Bound 2” his partner, Kim Kardashian. Reminiscent of West’s earlier work, the soul instrumental and background vocals are sampled from the Ponderosa Twins Plus One’s 1971 song “Bound,” whereas the memorable ‘uh-huh, honey’ comes from the intro to Brenda Lee’s 1959 record “Sweet Nothin’s.”

Kanye first shared a short snippet of this song on his website together with the album cover casing for Yeezus. Along with “New Slaves” and “Black Skinhead,” “Bound 2” was one of three singles to be previewed before the album’s release. However, it was one of the last tracks to be finished—three weeks before the album’s last possible delivery date, Kanye enlisted Rick Rubin to help finish the song. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Rubin recalled:

The whole song was written without that main sample; it was a last-minute thing. The song had kind of a lot of R&B music in it. […] So we started by getting the sample to work in the song, and then taking out as much stuff as we could, and then in the chorus reducing what was this whole musical thing, just this sort of one ugly, distorted bass note. I was thinking like Alan Vega and Suicide, that kind of noise-synth minimal vibe.

“Bound 2” peaked at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. The original, pre-Rick Rubin version of “Bound,” titled “Bound 1,” was premiered by producer Hudson Mohawke at a concert in 2014.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

What did Kanye West say about "Bound 2"?
Genius Answer

During a Breakfast Club interview:

The album don’t even got no music. I just let y'all have a little music on there on “Bound” but that was it.

What has producer Rick Rubin said about the song?
Genius Answer

Rubin told Rolling Stone,

That’s a good one. The whole song was written without that main sample; it was a last-minute thing. The song had kind of a lot of R&B music in it. And Kanye gave marching orders of “Take out anything you want, but don’t add. Just take away.” Like, “OK.” And before that, we listened to the sample together and thought, “Hmm, maybe there’s a way to integrate this into the song.” So we started by getting the sample to work in the song, and then taking out as much stuff as we could, and then in the chorus reducing what was this whole musical thing, just this sort of one ugly, distorted bass note. I was thinking like Alan Vega and Suicide, that kind of noise-synth minimal vibe. So that was the idea behind the chorus: Take it from this sort of R&B thing and turn it into this kind of post-punk, edge thing. And the lyrics he wrote were so good and funny. It just turned into a really good record [laughs]. The sample is so good.

Does a parody video exist?
Genius Answer

Actors James Franco and Og Lil Flash released the parody video “Bound 3,” on the pair’s movie, “The Interview.” A dedicated recreation–featuring Rogan as Kim and Franco as Kanye.

Kim revealed that she and Ye thought the clip was very funny.

Was there a lawsuit over the sample?
What has Kanye said about the video?
Was the track well received critically?
Was this song commercially successful?
Is there a live performance of this song?
Credits
Performance Rights
Additional Production
Mixing Engineer
Assistant Mixing Engineer
Mastering Engineer
Video Director
Executive Producer
Additional Vocals
Guitar
Release Date
June 18, 2013
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