on in debut single "Through the Wire". Recording On February 13, 2014, a video surfaced online from 2003 of West rapping his verse to Pharrell in the studio, as well as singing along with the sample and Pharrell clearly showed excitement after hearing the rap from him. The verse was actually recorded by West on the night of the Madison Square Garden show by Jay that he wasn't invited to. Ivy rapped his verse on speaker phone to West and others on December 7, 2002, then flew over to Hollywood to join them in recording via West's request. It was revealed by Tarry Torae that West set up a little studio section in his living room during the recording of "Never Let Me Down" and Torae ended up recording two or three songs in the night of this session, one of which was "My Way" which ended up on West's mixtape Freshmen Adjustment (2004). When it comes to Jay's appearance on the track, John Monopoly revealed that he recorded for it literally two days before mastering of the featuring album - however, Jay had confirmed to give West a feature before it was even known which track he'd be part of. Reception Critical response "Never Let Me Down" received positive reviews from the majority of music critics, though most tended to have praise for West's work and express negativity towards Jay's contributions. Paul Cantor of Billboard had mixed views towards the song, describing Jay's presence as being where he "phones in a verse about making number one albums", but praising the rest of it for being "about overcoming racism and undefeatable odds". Rob Mitchum of Pitchfork felt negatively about Jay's contributions too, labelling his appearance as him "already sounding groggy from retirement". Jay's content was viewed as paling in comparison to that of West by Dave Heaton of PopMatters, since he described the song as "where Jay-Z rhymes about attaining status and power, Kanye one-ups him with a show-stopping attack on racism and meditation on death". The staff of HipHopDX actually put Jay forward as being better than West on the song but didn't lack praise for either rapper, writing that "Jay-Z drops 2 incredible verses on [Never Let Me Down] with Kanye not far behind delivering the verse of his career." It was viewed by Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine as being one of the album tracks where West