Michael Bolton Annotated Kanye West's "Never Let Me Down" on Genius

Going back to Kanye West‘s 2004 classic College Dropout, you will find that his track “Never Let Me Down” samples Blackjack’s “Maybe It’s the Power of Love.” The band’s frontman Michael Bolton takes to Genius today to annotate his thoughts on Kanye’s track. “When Kanye and JAY Z’s publishing reps reached out to me about clearing this sample, I was surprised and flattered. I wrote this song in the early ’80s. If you told me back then that 20 years later it would have a second life in the work of two great hip-hop artists, I would have called you crazy! Happy as I was, I wanted to make sure that I was cool with the content of the song before giving the go-ahead. So I had them send me the lyrics. I read them, and I thought ‘I love this. It’s great. What a positive message.’ And the song turned out beautifully — I’m totally happy with it.” We feel the same way, Michael.