All of the Lights

"All of the Lights" is a song by American rapper Kanye West, released as the fourth single from his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010). It was produced by West and features additional vocals from several other recording artists, including John Legend, The-Dream, Drake, Alicia Keys, Fergie, Elton John, Ryan Leslie, Charlie Wilson, Tony Williams, La Roux, Alvin Fields, Ken Lewis, Kid Cudi, and Rihanna; the latter two are credited on the official music video and single version, but not on the album version. It is often played along with its accompanying interlude "All of the Lights (Interlude)", which precedes the song on the album's tracklist.

"All of the Lights" was universally acclaimed by music critics, who complimented its detailed, maximalist production and dramatic theme. It was commercially successful in the U.S., peaking at number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs; it landed at number 59 on the Billboard Year-End Charts in 2011. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards, the song won Grammy Awards for Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, and was nominated for Song of the Year. By December 2011, the song had sold over 1,561,000 digital units in the US. It has been certified septuple Platinum by the RIAA.

The song's accompanying music video, directed by Hype Williams, featured strobe-lit performances of Rihanna and West, as well as Kid Cudi. It was given a discretionary warning by Epilepsy Action, stating that the video "potentially triggers seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy". West and Rihanna performed the song at the 2011 NBA All-Star Game, while it was also featured in the promo for the same event. A snippet of the song was performed by Rihanna at the 2023 Super Bowl Halftime Show.

"All of the Lights" was written by Kanye West, Jeff Bhasker, Malik Jones, Warren Trotter, Stacy Ferguson and Terius Nash. Its production was helmed by West himself and co-produced by Bhasker. Fourteen artists lent their voices as background vocals to the song: Alicia Keys, John Legend, The-Dream, Drake, Fergie, Kid Cudi, Elton John, Ryan Leslie, Charlie Wilson, Tony Williams, La Roux, Alvin Fields, Ken Lewis, and Rihanna, who also sang the song's hook and is labeled as a featured artist on the single version. West and Rihanna previously collaborated with Jay-Z on "Run This Town" (The Blueprint 3, 2009).

The early working title for "All of The Lights" was previously "Ghetto University" when the production on the song was just beginning. Songwriter Malik Yusef revealed that the original demo for the song contained a sample of Muhammad Ali saying "The champ is here"; Yusef attempted to create rhymes around it, but ended up telling the engineer to remove the sample to clear space on the song. After having taken the sample out, Yusef eventually came up with the "all of the lights" part after thinking about his son's first words, which were "light";

I thought, light is a beautiful word. There's all kinds of light–there's sunlight, there's flashlight, there's strobe lights, there's night lights, there's streetlights...all of the lights. When I said that, a literal light went off in my brain, I was like [singing] "All of the lights, all of the lights". I had it. I went upstairs and told Rick Ross, "I've got it", he said "you sure?" and I said, "I got it!" Jeff Bhasker was in there and he came down, we recorded it, and it just started after that.

In a 2013 interview with The Breakfast Club, West said that the song took two years to finish, and detailed the creation and process of the song;

"'All The Lights' is a futurist song that started out as a Jeezy record with horns on it, then we put in another bridge, then Dream wrote the hook, then Rihanna sang it, and by the time you got it, it was to the level of like, the Nike Flyknit or something like that.