‘Real Artistry’: Beck’s Father Worked on Beyoncé Album

Album of the Year Grammy-winning artist Beck’s father worked on a Beyoncé album in 2006, the Hollywood Reporter confirmed Thursday. Maybe, now that it is known that his dad worked on an album for his Beyoncé, Kanye West will finally concede that Beck is a “real artist.”

David Campbell, a music arranger, conductor, and composer, arranged the string instruments and conducted on Beyoncé’s 2006 album B’day, which won the Grammy that year for best contemporary R&B album.

Campbell has seemingly worked with everyone in the music industry; since getting his start in the early ’70s working on Carole King albums, he’s done string arrangement work for the likes of Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Metallica, Paul McCartney, Green Day, Radiohead, the Dixie Chicks, Garth Brooks, U2, and literally hundreds of others. According to the reddit TIL (Today I Learned) that revealed the Beyoncé connection, Campbell has worked on over 450 albums that have gone gold or platinum.

Campbell has also worked on several Grammy Award-winning albums, including Adele’s 21, Justin Timberlake’s Futuresex/Lovesounds, and his own son Beck’s Morning Phase, winner of the top award at this year’s event.

Kanye made headlines at this year’s Grammy Awards after he suggested, again, that another artist was more deserving of an award than the eventual winner. In this year’s edition, West complained backstage to E! after the show that Beck is not a “real artist,” and that Beyoncé should have won the Album of the Year award. The backstage crybabying came after another mid-acceptance speech mic-snatching stunt, although this time, West stopped short of actually grabbing Beck’s microphone.

Ironically, after actually listening to the album, West said he liked it.

“I was like, ‘Man, this is kind of good, I ain’t gonna lie,'” he said in a radio interview with Power 105.1.

Maybe he liked it because one of the world-class musicians featured on the record helped Beyoncé win a Grammy. We’ll probably never know.