Kanye West reckons Will.I.Am is producing the next U2 album. On his blog Kanye writes, “Will I Am is producing on U2’s next album. I’m sure it will be dope as shit judging from the crazy beats he’s done in the last 3 years!”

The news seems ever-so-slightly unlikely in the light of the Edge’s recent interview with Mojo, in which he discusses the band’s scrapping their recordings with Rick Rubin, saying, “We actually laid all that stuff to one side. Really out of deference to Rick and that set of songs we just said, Ok, that’s that, and we drew a line. So none of the Rick material went into this project. Everything has been written subsequently.”

The Edge explains that U2 feels more comfortable with their long-term collaborators Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois on production duties. “We went in with Brian and Danny, literally just as an experiment to see what would happen. And suddenly there was this excess of stuff, ideas… and we just thought, OK, this is clearly where we are at our most potent at this moment, working with Brain and Danny, so let’s follow that idea down the road.”

It seems a bit odd that U2 would bring in Will.I.Am at this stage. Although the Edge admits, “Song titles, lyrics, melody lines can change right up until the last minute. I think our records are always… it’s the last few weeks when things really come into focus. It might take us a long time to establish the basis of the record musically, but then a lot of stuff will change.” So I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.U2’s twelfth studio album, with the working title No Line on the Horizon, is scheduled for release in February. [Pitchfork]