“Lost In The World” by Kanye West featuring Justin Vernon

"Lost in the World" puts Justin Vernon of Bon Iver on Kanye West's fifth album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010), twice over: singing on the track, and sampled from his own 2009 song "Woods". West produced it with Jeff Bhasker, who also plays keyboards, and they piled on more borrowed history, from portions of Manu Dibango's "Soul Makossa" to samples of Gil Scott-Heron's "Comment No. 1", with Alicia Keys and Charlie Wilson among the extra voices.

An early take leaked in September 2010 at close to six minutes; for the album West split it in two, spinning the outro off as "Who Will Survive in America". Critics praised the atmospheric production, Vernon's turn and a West verse counted among his most poetic, and the song rolled under the closing credits of Runaway, his 35-minute short film. He took it to Coachella and Glastonbury with Vernon, and in 2011 performed it at Gil Scott-Heron's funeral.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.