The album's opening track "Heard 'Em Say" exhibits a cascading piano melody provided by excerpts of "Someone That I Used To Love" as performed by Natalie Cole embellished over tumbling beats and a bass synthesizer as well as acoustic guitar. The song's intricately composed outro, with the right amount of flourish provided by new musical elements such as xylophones and bells, exemplifies the musical complexity of the album as a whole. "Touch the Sky" stands as the sole song on the entire album not to feature production by West. The song was produced by fellow Roc-a-Fella producer Just Blaze, who uses a slowed-down sample of Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up" filled with jubilant Latin horn blares. "Gold Digger" contains an interpolation of "I Got a Woman" by Ray Charles and a bouncy beat formed from handclaps as well as scratches by West's touring DJ A-Trak. Towards the end, the song employs vintage synthesizers, which emit a honking sound in to Kanye's voice. West's production approach comes full circle within "Drive Slow", a song that samples the alto sax from Hank Crawford's recording of "Wildflower", while also slightly speeding up and looping the song's intro melody over a jazzy downtempo drum loop before slowing down the track towards the end of the song, which is antithetical to West's Chipmunk-styled loops.