Daft Punk’s “Black Skinhead” Percussion Was Originally Intended For ‘Random Access Memories’

Daft Punk are now in the sex business with “Get Lucky” condoms, but we’ve got some actual music news about the French Robots, since they’ve shed some light on their role in the making of Kanye West‘s Yeezus. As you probably know, the duo of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo scored production credits on four tracks from the album — “On Sight,” “Black Skinhead,” “I Am A God” and “Send It Up” — and now Bangalter let fans in on a few specific about their crucial role in the album.

“We were the first people that Kanye came to,” Bangalter told Vibe. “He really responded positively to those ideas we were throwing out to him. And then he ran with it and built the record, working with a lot of other producers and based on maybe some of the initial directions that we had laid out together.” (Kanye says he’s been working on the “Black Skinhead” video for five months, so that can give you a rough sense of when Daft Punk linked up with the rapper.)

Bangalter even revealed that the standout percussion in “Black Skinhead” was originally intended for Random Access Memories. “The first track we did was ‘Black Skinhead.’ The drums we had recorded earlier during the recording of our album, so we had those.”

Considering the chill disco/yacht rock vibes of RAM, they were probably wise to find a new home for those primal thumps.