While Paul McCartney and Kanye West come from different generations, they were able to find common ground through music. The two artists have worked together, and McCartney has talked in detail about their collaborations. While he said he believed West was a talented artist, he hesitated to describe him as a genius. Here’s why.

Paul McCartney didn’t want to describe Kanye West as a genius

West has been described as a genius over the years, by fans and fellow artists alike. When asked if he viewed West this way after working with him, McCartney said he wasn’t sure he’d use that word. Still, he acknowledged West’s talent.

“I don’t throw that word around [laughs],” he told Rolling Stone in 2016. “I think he’s a great artist.”

He likes West’s music and didn’t hesitate to collaborate with him, though.

“Take My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I played it when I was cooking, and it was like, ‘This is good. There’s some really innovative stuff,’” he said. “When the word came from his people, through my people [laughs], I thought, ‘Let’s give it a go.’”

Paul McCartney said Kanye West reminded him of John Lennon

West and McCartney worked together on the song “Only One.” He said that their collaborative process reminded him in some ways of working with John Lennon.

“When I wrote with John, he would sit down with a guitar. I would sit down. We’d ping-pong till we had a song,” McCartney said, per Time. “[Working with West] was like that.”

He said it was impossible to achieve the kind of connection he had with Lennon with West or any other artist, though.

“At some point, you have to realize, some things just can’t be,” he said. “John and me, we were kids growing up together, in the same environment with the same influences: He knows the records I know, I know the records he knows. You’re writing your first little innocent songs together. Then you’re writing something that gets recorded. Each year goes by, and you get the cooler clothes. Then you write the cooler song to go with the cooler clothes. We were on the same escalator – on the same step of the escalator, all the way. It’s irreplaceable – that time, friendship and bonding.”

He spoke about working with the other artist

McCartney said that when he worked with West, they used a songwriting strategy that felt unfamiliar to him.

“It’s this modern process that I was happy to open myself up to — you’ve got loads of stuff, and the skill is to distill it,” he told Billboard. “I was sitting around, just strumming a little groove and nobody said, ‘Let’s make a song of that.’ But months later I got a song with Rihanna on it and I said, ‘Where am I?’ I didn’t recognize it because they changed the key [on the guitar riff].”

While it took some getting used to, McCartney said he liked the resulting song, “FourFiveSeconds.”

“I thought that record was great,” he said. “Every time we go to a club, my wife Nancy requests it.”