"FourFiveSeconds" was written by West, McCartney, Kirby Lauryen, Mike Dean, Sign, Dave Longstreth, Dallas Austin, Elon Rutberg and Noah Goldstein.
On February 8, during his Grammy Awards red carpet interview, West explained how the collaboration came to fruition: "I'm executive producer of Rihanna's album, and I said I'd done a few songs with Paul McCartney and she couldn't get past this record.