Kanye West has 12 studio rules while he was working on his fifth studio album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The album was released on November 22nd, 2022 and recorded from 2009-2010.
Kanye’s MBDTF Studio Rules:
- NO TWEETING
- NO HIPSTER HATS
- ALL LAPTOPS ON MUTE
- JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP SOMETIMES
- NO BLOGGING
- NO TWEETING PLEASE THANK YOU
- NO NEGATIVE BLOG VIEWING
- DON’T TELL ANYONE ANYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING WE ARE DOING!
- NO RACKING FOCUS WHEN MUSIC IS BEING PLAYED OR MUSIC IS BEING MADE
- TOTAL FOCUS ON THIS PROJECT IN ALL STUDIOS
- NO ACOUSTIC GUITAR IN THE STUDIO
- NO PICTURES
“Once we hit the studio, it was just all focus on the music. All focus was one hundred percent on the music. There were rules: no Twittering, no e-mailing, no blog-watching – no stupid questions. All of this stuff is posted all over the walls. A wall of questions, for inspirations. ‘What would Mobb Deep do?’ All types of stuff.”
—Pusha T on working with Kanye West on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Another collaborator on the album, Rick Ross (who introduced Kanye West to Pusha T), described his experience in an excerpt from his memoir, Hurricanes:
Once we got to the studio I started to gather that this wasn’t going to be my typical guest verse. The first thing I noticed were all these signs Kanye had put up on the walls.
NO TWEETING
NO HIPSTER HATS
ALL LAPTOPS ON MUTE
JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP SOMETIMES
NO TWEETING PLEASE THANK YOU
NO BLOGGING
NO NEGATIVE BLOG VIEWING
DON’T TELL ANYONE ANYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING WE’RE DOING!
NO RACKING FOCUS WHILE MUSIC IS BEING PLAYED OR MUSIC IS BEING MADE
TOTAL FOCUS ON THIS PROJECT IN ALL STUDIOS
NO ACOUSTIC GUITAR IN THE STUDIO
NO PICTURESI wasn’t sure what tweeting was but I did know that something different was taking place here. Kanye had flown in a murderer’s row of emcees, producers and songwriters to work on this project. Legendary beatmakers like No I.D., Pete Rock and DJ Toomp. Young superstars in the making like Nicki Minaj, Kid Cudi and Big Sean.
Rick Ross, Hurricanes
Chris Rock was also a part of the My beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy sessions and featured on Blame Game spoke on his experience in the studio during an interview with Sway, “Everybody in the studio had suits on, I thought he had flown in a bunch of gyms from Europe or something, all the engineers and everybody was in black suites and white shirts, black tie. He set up a mood” he said.
Watch Chris Rock speak on his studio experience with Kanye above.
