Landing a hit record is already hard enough, but a Diamond-certified song is even harder. Luckily for Kanye West, he recently achieved both thanks to one of the most popular songs off his third album Graduation. The Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) announced that the rapper’s 2007 track “Stronger” just became his first Diamond-certified single. What that denotes is that the single sold at least 10 million copies since its release 14 years ago.
#Stronger has become @KanyeWest’s first DIAMOND ? Award! ? Congratulations to Yeezy and @DefJamRecordings! ? #RIAATopCertified pic.twitter.com/JubcdD6CXI
— RIAA (@RIAA) October 6, 2021
Four months after its release, “Stronger” became the rapper’s third No. 1 single when it reached the top of the singles chart at the end of September in 2007. Additionally, the song won a plethora of awards, which includes Best Hip-Hop Video at the 2007 BET Awards, Video Of The Year, Best Director, and Best Editing at the 2007 MTV VMAs, and Best Rap Solo Performance at the 2008 Grammy Awards.
One of the most infamous stories behind “Stronger” is that it was reportedly mixed more than 75 times before and after its release. West worked with eight audio engineers and 11 mix engineers from all over the world on the song, but it wasn’t until he called on Timbaland to re-do the track’s drum programming that he felt satisfied. Still, West later decided the song wasn’t nearly as good as Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” which he sampled for “Stronger.”
