“Ultralight Beam” by Kanye West featuring Chance the Rapper, The-Dream, Kelly Price and Kirk Franklin

Kanye West put his faith front and center on "Ultralight Beam", from his seventh studio album The Life of Pablo (2016), and he brought a congregation to testify: The-Dream and Kelly Price singing, Chance the Rapper rapping, gospel singer Kirk Franklin and a ten-piece choir. It begins with a four-year-old named Natalie Green, lifted from an Instagram clip, talking about God, and from there it rolls on soul and gospel like a Sunday service that wandered into a hip-hop session. It grew out of loose jams with regulars like Mike Dean; Justin Bieber passed through too, but his part never made the record.

Critics loved it, and Chance got the loudest cheers. It was never a single, yet it drew two Grammy nominations, and in 2019 Pitchfork and Rolling Stone both placed it on their lists of the 2010s' finest songs.

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