"30 Hours" is a song by American rap musician

Kanye West Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer and record producer. One of the most prominent figures in hip-hop, he is known for his varying musical style and polarizing cultural and political commentary. After ...

, featuring backing vocals from Andre 3000, that lies on West's seventh studio album ''

The Life of Pablo ''The Life of Pablo'' is the seventh studio album by American rapper Kanye West. It was released on February 14, 2016, through GOOD Music and distributed by Def Jam Recordings. Recording sessions took place from 2013 to 2016, in Italy, Mexico, ...

'' (2016). The track was released as a promotional single from the album as part of West's

GOOD Fridays GOOD Fridays was a weekly free music release by rapper Kanye West, launched in support of his fifth studio album '' My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' (2010), and again for his seventh studio album ''The Life of Pablo'' (2016). The original inte ...

program.

Composition and lyrics

"30 Hours" heavily samples the 1986 track "Answers Me" by Arthur Russell. The song also includes a sample of drums from the 1973 single "Joy" by

Isaac Hayes Isaac Lee Hayes Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008) was an American singer, songwriter, composer, and actor. He was one of the creative forces behind the Southern soul music label Stax Records in the 1960s, serving as an in-house songwr ...

. The album version has an outro similar to that of "Last Call" from West's debut studio album ''

The College Dropout ''The College Dropout'' is the debut studio album by the American rapper Kanye West. It was released on February 10, 2004, by Roc-A-Fella Records and Def Jam Recordings. In the years leading up to its release, West had received praise for his p ...

'' (2004). By the time that all the changes had been made to ''The Life of Pablo'' in June 2016, the track had been crafted by West to sound like the original version. The song interpolates

Nelly Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. (born November 2, 1974), better known by his stage name Nelly, is an American rapper, singer, and actor. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and embarked on his musical career in 1993 as a member of the Midwest hip hop g ...

singles " E.I." and " Hot in Herre".

Release

Prior to the release of the song, " Real Friends" and "

No More Parties in LA "No More Parties in LA" (often stylized as "No More Parties in L.A.") is a song by American rapper Kanye West from his seventh studio album, ''The Life of Pablo'' (2016), featuring vocals from fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar. It was produced by Wes ...

" had already been released for streaming as part of the

program. The track was released as a promotional single just like they were, so West made it solely available for free streaming on

SoundCloud SoundCloud is a German audio streaming service owned and operated by SoundCloud Global Limited & Co. KG. The service enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is ...

instead of sites like

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Amazon Music Amazon Music (previously Amazon MP3) is a music streaming platform and digital music store operated by Amazon. As of January 2020, the service had 55 million subscribers. It was the first music store to sell music without digital rights manag ...

where it had to be paid for. "30 Hours" went on to be removed from SoundCloud, despite the two promotional singles "

Facts A fact is a true datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means. For exa ...

" and "No More Parties in LA" still being available on the site. ''The Life of Pablo'' was scheduled to be titled "Waves" at one point and the track was set to be a part of Act 2 on one of the track lists for the album. On the day that the song was released, West announced via

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

that the featuring album was being mastered and set for release later on in the day, alongside promotion of the single – however, the release was delayed by two days due to

Chance the Rapper Chancelor Johnathan Bennett (born April 16, 1993), known professionally as Chance the Rapper, is an American rapper. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, he released his debut mixtape '' 10 Day'' (2012) during one of his high school suspension ...

fighting to keep the track "

Waves United States Naval Reserve (Women's Reserve), better known as the WAVES (for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), was the women's branch of the United States Naval Reserve during World War II. It was established on July 21, 1942, ...

" as part of it. Two days after ''The Life of Pablos release, West tweeted out thanks to

Drake Drake may refer to: Animals and creatures * A male duck * Drake (mythology), a term related to and often synonymous with dragon People and fictional characters * Drake (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the family ...

for helping him write "30 Hours" along with " Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1" and also promised more music with both Drake and

Future The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ex ...

Recording

Photography of background vocalist Andre 3000 in the studio alongside other rappers with West working on the album was posted on

2 Chainz Tauheed K. Epps (born September 12, 1977), known professionally as 2 Chainz (formerly Tity Boi), is an American rapper and actor. Born and raised in College Park, Georgia, he gained recognition as one-half of the Southern hip-hop duo Playaz Ci ...

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

in January 2016. When Andre was on his way to the studio in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, he decided to bring a random Uber passenger with him. Andre revealed that he was expecting to drop a guest verse on "30 Hours" and that others expected one from him, though the collaboration fell through.

Critical reception

When reviewing ''The Life of Pablo'' for ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'',

Rob Sheffield Robert James Sheffield (born February 2, 1966) is an American music journalist and author. He is a long time contributing editor at ''Rolling Stone'', writing about music, TV, and pop culture. Previously, he was a contributing editor at '' Blen ...

viewed "30 Hours" as "the most stunning track here". Gavin Haynes of ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

'' described West's sampling of "Answers Me" in the track as where "he pulls off the most masterful of these high-low art juxtapositions".

Commercial performance

Upon the release of ''The Life of Pablo'', the song debuted at number 6 on the US ''Billboard'' Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart and remained on it for a total of two weeks.

Credits and personnel

Credits adapted from West's official website. *Production –

Karriem Riggins Karriem Riggins is an American jazz drummer, record producer, DJ and songwriter from Detroit, Michigan. He met Chicago rapper Common and fellow Detroit musician J Dilla both in 1996, and served as an extensive contributor for releases by both ...

& Mike Dean #MWA for Dean's List Productions *Additional production –

Noah Goldstein Noah Goldstein is an American record producer, film composer, and audio engineer. He is known for his work with Kanye West, having engineered his albums ''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' (2010), ''Yeezus'' (2013) and ''The Life of Pablo'' (20 ...

for Ark Productions, Inc. *Engineering –

, Andrew Dawson, Anthony Kilhoffer, Mike Dean & Tom Kahre *Mix –

Manny Marroquin Manny Marroquin (born September 21, 1971) is a Guatemalan-American record mixing engineer. He has been credited on albums for high-profile pop, R&B, hip hop and rock acts. He has worked with artists including Rihanna, Kanye West, Katy Perry ...

at Larrabee Studios, North Hollywood, CA *Mix assisted – Chris Galland, Ike Schultz & Jeff Jackson *Background vocals –

André Benjamin André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries, as well in Portugal ...

Vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''vo''ice and en''coder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder wa ...

– Mike Dean

Charts

Certifications

References

{{authority control 2016 songs Kanye West songs Song recordings produced by Kanye West Song recordings produced by Mike Dean (record producer) Songs written by Drake (musician) Songs written by Kanye West Songs written by Mike Dean (record producer) Songs written by Nelly Songs written by Jay E Songs written by Pharrell Williams Songs written by Isaac Hayes