Produced by Kanye and S1, “POWER” samples “21st Century Schizoid Man” by progressive British rock band King Crimson, the drums from the Cold Grits' rendition of “It’s Your Thing” (not the first time), and “Afroamerica” by Continent Number 6.

During an interview with New York radio station Power 105.1, West said he spent thousands of hours working on this carefully-crafted song. “A song like ‘Power’ took 5,000 hours, like literally 5,000 man-hours to do this one record. That’s the amount of time I was putting into every song on the album,” West revealed.

The accompanying music video has received critical acclaim. Russian supermodel Irina Shayk, who sits in a chair in the video, has called it “a moving painting”.

George Condo designed the cover art for the single. Condo also designed all five artworks for the album. The rolling head had been West’s Twitter profile picture since its release until 2018.