Kanye West's Writing Camps Helped Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig Creative Process

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Kanye West performs during Kanye West Yeezy Season 3 on February 11, 2016 in New York City.
Ezra Koenig details the influence he had from songwriting for Yeezy.

By now, the majority of the people are aware of Kanye West's working process. While he began as a producer, he's since created mega writing camps where he gets some of the best songwriters in the world together to help concoct the project's he's working on. They say that two minds work better than one and that's definitely something Kanye applies to his albums. One person he brought on board for one of the writing camps is Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig. In a recent interview, he explained how working with Kanye West helped him in the long run.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ezra Koenig explained how working in camps for Beyonce and Kanye West helped shape his creative process. He says working with Kanye gave him an appreciation for being a songwriter as opposed to the performer. 

"If you’re in a situation where Kanye hands you something and asks you to go come up with an idea and make a demo, suddenly you step out of yourself. You look at the craft of songwriting in a different way, without the narcissism of it being all about you and your presentation to the world," he said. 

After working with Yeezy, Ezra says it inspired him to try and work with as many people as he could for the record.

"When I first started thinking about this album, I had big ambitions. I was like, “I’m gonna do this Kanye stuff, and if that means I work with 200 people, I’m down.” Every once in a while I’ll sit down and write a song by myself, but I really love writing songs with other people," he told them.

In September, Ezra said the Vampire Weekend album is 80% done. Who knows, maybe Yeezy might return the favor and help out with their forthcoming album in some fashion.


About The Author
Aron A. is a features editor for HotNewHipHop. Beginning his tenure at HotNewHipHop in July 2017, he has comprehensively documented the biggest stories in the culture over the past few years. Throughout his time, Aron’s helped introduce a number of buzzing up-and-coming artists to our audience, identifying regional trends and highlighting hip-hop from across the globe. As a Canadian-based music journalist, he has also made a concerted effort to put spotlights on artists hailing from North of the border as part of Rise & Grind, the weekly interview series that he created and launched in 2021. Aron also broke a number of stories through his extensive interviews with beloved figures in the culture. These include industry vets (Quality Control co-founder Kevin "Coach K" Lee, Wayno Clark), definitive producers (DJ Paul, Hit-Boy, Zaytoven), cultural disruptors (Soulja Boy), lyrical heavyweights (Pusha T, Styles P, Danny Brown), cultural pioneers (Dapper Dan, Big Daddy Kane), and the next generation of stars (Lil Durk, Latto, Fivio Foreign, Denzel Curry). Aron also penned cover stories with the likes of Rick Ross, Central Cee, Moneybagg Yo, Vince Staples, and Bobby Shmurda.
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