"Stronger" is a song by American hip hop artist Kanye West,
released as the second single from his third studio album
Graduation. It was produced by West and contains an
extended outro co-produced with Mike Dean. The song contains a
sample of "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by French house
duo Daft Punk, who received songwriting credit and had their
costumes appear in its accompanying music video. The single was
first released digitally on July 31, 2007 and soon became
West's third number-one single. It won a Grammy Award for Best
Rap Solo Performance at the 50th Grammy Awards.
A portion of "Stronger" was first released in May 2007 on
West's
Can't Tell Me Nothingmixtape. Shortly afterwards, on May
31, 2007, Brendon Joshua played the full-length song on his
podcast. On June 27, 2007, "Stronger" was put onto the BBC
Radio 1 Up-Front playlist and was later upgraded to the A-List
a month prior to its release. The single's cover art was
released on West's website on June 28, 2007. It was designed by
Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, who West collaborated with to
produce the artwork for
Graduation. The cover features a cartoon version of
West's mascot "Dropout Bear" wearing sunglasses similar to the
those West wears in the music video, as well as the small,
robotic heads of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de
Homem-Christo of Daft Punk. West performed a partial version of
"Stronger" live at the Concert for Diana held at Wembley
Stadium on July 1, 2007 to a crowd of 63,000 people. An
estimated 500 million people watched the event in over 140
countries worldwide.
The single was released to iTunes on July 31, 2007. It
debuted on the Hot 100 at number forty-seven and eventually
peaked at the number-one position, the same week his album
Graduationtook the number one spot. It is West's third
number-one single in the United States, following "Slow Jamz"
and "Gold Digger." After becoming West's first number one
single in the UK, "Stronger" went on to be met by widespread
international success, reaching number-one in Canada, Turkey,
and New Zealand. The song was also met by critical recognition
and was the recipient of multiple awards, including a Grammy
Award for Best Rap Solo Performance. Daft Punk themselves made
a surprise appearance at the 50th Grammy Awards on February 10,
2008 to join West in performing a reworked version of the song
on stage at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. A press release
specified that this was the very first televised live
performance by Daft Punk in their career.
"Stronger" is an electronica-infused hip-hop song composed
in the key of E-flat minor. It is written in common time and
moves at 104 beats per minute. The song is built around vocal
sample of the 2001 house song "Harder, Better, Faster,
Stronger" by Daft Punk. Following the introduction, where a
chopped sample of Daft Punk's robotic vocals expressing a
decreased tempo is played continuously in the background, West
raps the refrain, which expresses Friedrich Nietzsche's famous
dictum, "What does not kill him, makes him stronger", as well
as the hook twice and enter the first verse. He repeats this
process three more times, making slight alterations to the
chorus each time. He injects a "me likely" ad-lib after the
hook in the second, repeats a line within the verse six times
on the third, and recites the hook four times on the fourth. It
is also within the fourth that the song breaks down and enters
an extended outro passage where the vocal sample is repeatedly
played over a layered, complex patchwork of synth-beats and
grooves before finally bring itself to a close.
West collaborated with Timbaland to rework the drum
programming and percussion for the final version of the song,
which appears on the
Graduationalbum. This version contains a master use of
Edwin Birdsong's "Cola Bottle Baby," the song that had been
previously sampled by Daft Punk themselves to produce "Harder,
Better, Faster, Stronger". The pre-album version of "Stronger",
known to the public and being used by radio, television and
other outlets, was the version used as the single. On October
4, 2007, a previously unreleased version of "Stronger" was
revealed. This version retains a singular, unused verse from
West, while the structure features less synthesizer chords and
percussion. It is believed that this version was an early draft
of the final song.
On July 3, 2007, West told Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 that
although he believes "Stronger" is a great song, it does not
compare to the sampled original. Daft Punk were delighted upon
first hearing the new song on Power 106 while on a San
Francisco flight. As Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of the duo
stated, "Our song had a good sound, but when [the radio DJ] put
Kanye's record on, the sound was really fat. It sounds really
big." The use of "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" was
requested through Pedro Winter, Daft Punk's manager at the
time, and approved by the duo. De Homem-Christo also clarified
that "It's not a collaboration in the studio, but the vibe of
the music we do separately connected in what [West] did with
the song." In a later interview, de Homem-Christo specified
that the live performance of "Stronger" at the 50th Grammy
Awards was "truly a collaboration from the start. We really did
it all hand in hand."
The song was also named the number one record of 2007 in the
January 2008 issue of
Spinmagazine with Kanye West and Daft Punk presiding on
the cover. This song was number 11 on
Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007. This
song was also number 96 on
MTV Asia's list of Top 100 Hits of 2007.
"Stronger" entered the Hot 100 on the charting week of
August 11, 2007 at number forty-seven, the highest debut single
on the chart that week. Over the next eight weeks, the song
steadily climbed upwards, reaching the number one position on
the charting week of September 29, 2007, pushing the previous
week's chart topper, Soulja Boy Tell 'Em's "Crank That (Soulja
Boy)" into the number two position. However, the following
week, "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" replaced "Stronger" atop the
charts, making West's single reach its peak for only one week.
The song debuted on the UK Singles Chart at number three and
rose to become West's very first number one single in the
United Kingdom. Climbing on downloads alone, it surpassed the
prior week's number one single, Robyn's "With Every Heartbeat".
It has also topped the Canadian Hot 100, New Zealand, and the
Turkish Singles charts. The song ended 2007 as the 19th
biggest-selling single in the UK of that year.
The music video for "Stronger" was directed by Hype Williams
and shot over nine days in Japan. It include shots filmed in
Aoyama-based clothing store A Bathing Ape as well as Harajuku
clothing store Billionaire Boys Club/Ice Cream. The video took
over three months to complete. West first premiered a rough cut
at the Tribeca Studios in New York City on June 19, 2007. It
made its public premiere on June 26, 2007, on MTV Germany's
TRL. The video was also shown on the BET countdown show
106 & Parkon June 28, 2007.
The video features appearances by singer and model Cassie
Ventura, a real-life Japanese motorcycle gang, and the two
principal actors from the film
Daft Punk's Electromadressed as Daft Punk. The video
also features multiple scenes which pay homage to the 1988
anime film
Akira. These include the light effects on the
motorbikes, the hospital scenes and West being scanned by
machines. Both West and Williams had originally planned to
integrate scenes from the film into the video. West also wears
a pair of Alain Mikli sunglasses, which he requested from the
designer specifically for the video. The sunglasses have since
become a signature of West, who for a period of time often
donned them during performances. The video was nominated two
2007 MTV Video Music Awards for Video of the Year and Best
Editing in a Video. It won Best Hip-Hop Video at the BET
Hip-Hop Awards as well as Best Video at the MOBO Awards.
The JabbaWockeeZ performed to this song in the finale of
America's Best Dance Crew (season 1) as their victory
performance for being crowned champions. 30 Seconds to Mars
performed a cover version of "Stronger" on BBC Radio 1, which
is featured on
Radio 1's Live Lounge – Volume 2and a UK release of the
single "From Yesterday". The cover features a slower tempo on
guitar and omits the profanity, which was reworded by their
lead singer Jared Leto. Leto said that he "hoped that Kanye
[was] okay" with the editing. The song can be heard for the
promo of the 2007 film
The Kingdom. It can also be heard as the introductory
song of the Baltimore Orioles, Toronto Raptors, New York Mets,
Texas Longhorns, Washington Wizards, Cincinnati Reds and Tampa
Bay Rays. Also, the New York Giants entered the field to this
song at Super Bowl XLII and during most of their home games
during the season. The New York Rangers play it at every home
game as well. The song won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo
Performance for the 50th Grammy Awards. It is also Featured in
Season 4 Ep 4 of Entourage as background music in a night club.
The A-Trak remix of the song is used in an advert for the
short-lived American TV show
Bionic Woman. This song is also used by Animal Planet to
promote their new show
Jockeys, appearing in commercials as well as being the
series' opening theme.
CD single (International)
Promo 12" single
CD single (UK)
12" picture disc (UK)
iTunes Remixes single
Information taken from
Graduationliner notes.