Yo fuck you, Kanye, first and foremost
For making me do this shit. Muhfucker
Had to throw everybody out the motherfucking room
Cause they dont fucking..
(Id like to propose a toast)
(I said toast motherfucker)
And I am (heres to the roc)
And they ask me, they ask me, they ask me, I tell them (heres to Rocafella)
Raise your glasses, your glasses, your glasses to the sky (heres to the roc)
This is the last call for alcohol, for the... (heres to Rocafella)
So get your ass up off the wall
The all around the world Digital Underground, Pac
The Rudloph the red nosed reindeer of the Roc
I take my chain, my 15 seconds of fame
And come back next year with the whole fucking game
Aint nobody expect Kanye to end up on top
They expected that College Dropout to drop and then flop
Then maybe he stop savin all the good beats for himself
Rocafellas only niggaz that help
My money was thinner than Sean Pauls goatee hair
Now Jean Paul Gaultier cologne fill the air, here
They say he bourgie, he big-headed
Wont you please stop talking about how my dick head is
Flow infectious, give me 10 seconds
Ill have a buzz bigger than insects in Texas
Its funny how wasnt nobody interested
Til the night I almost killed myself in Lexus
Now was Kanye the most overlooked? Yes sir
Now is Kanye the most overbooked? Yes sir
Though the fans want the feeling of A Tribe Called Quest
But all they got left is this guy called West
Better take Freeway, throw him on tracks with Mos Def
Call him Kwa-lI or Kwe-li, I put him on songs with Jay-Z
Im the Gap like Banana Republic and Old Navy, and oooh
It come out sweeter than old Sadie
Nice as Bun-B when I met him at the Source awards
Girl he had with him - ass coulda won the horse awards
And I was almost famous, now everybody loves Kanye
Im almost Raymond
Some say he arrogant. Can yall blame him?
It was straight embarrassing how yall played him
Last year shoppin my demo, I was tryin to shine
Every motherfucker told me that I couldnt rhyme
Now I could let these dream killers kill my self-esteem
Or use my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams
I use it as my gas, so they say that Im gassed
But without it Id be last, so I ought to laugh
So I dont listen to the suits behind the desk no more
You niggaz wear suits cause you cant dress no more
You cant say shit to Kanye West no more
I rocked 20,000 people, I was just on tour, nigga
Im Kan, the Louis Vuitton Don
Bought my mom a purse, now she Louis Vuitton Mom
I aint play the hand I was dealt, I changed my cards
I prayed to the skies and I changed my stars
I went to the malls and I balled too hard
Oh my god, is that a Black Card?
I turned around and replied, why yes but I prefer the term
African American Express
Brains, power, and muscle, like Dame, Puffy, and Russell
Your boy back on his hustle, you know what Ive been up to
Killin yall niggaz on that lyrical shit
Mayonnaise colored Benz, I push Miracle Whips
"... last call for alcohol, for my niggaz"
So this A&R over at Rocafella, named Hiphop
picked the Truth beat for Beanie. And I was in the session with him
I had my demo with me. You know, like I always do
I play the songs, hes like "Who that spittin?"
Im like "Its me." Hes like "Oh, well okay."
Uhh, he started talkin to me on the phone
going back and forth, just askin me to send him beats
And Im thinking hes trying to get into managing producers
cause he had this other kid named Just Blaze he was messin with
And um, he was friends with my mentor, No ID
And No ID told him, "look man, you wanna mess with Kanye
you need to tell him that you like the way he rap"
"Yo, you wanna sign him, tell him you like how he rap"
I was all, I dunno if he was gassin me or not
but hes like he wanna manage me as a rapper AND a producer
"Ill sign you as a producer and a rapper",
Im like oh shit
I was messin with, uh, D-Dot also
People were like this, started talking about the Ghost production
But thats how I got in the game. If it wasnt for that, I wouldnt be here
So you know. After they picked that Truth beat
I was figuring I was gonna do some more work
But shit just went poppin off like that. I was stayin in Chicago
I had my own apartment. I be doin like, just beats for local acts
just to try to keep the lights on, and then to go out and buy
get a Pelle Pelle off lay-away, get some Jordans or something
or get a TechnoMarine, thats what we wore back then
I made this one beat where I sped up this Hal Melville sample
I played it for Hip over the phone, hes like "oh, yo that shit is crazy
Jay might want it for this compilation album he doin, called The Dynasty."
And at that time, like the drums really werent soundin right to me
so I went and um, I was listening to Dre Chronic 2001 at that time
and really I just, like picked the drums off Xxplosive and put it like
with it sped up, sampled, and now its kind of like my whole style
when it started, when he rapped on This Cant be Life.
And that was like, really the first beat of that kind that was on the Dynasty album
I could say that was the, the resurgence of this whole sound
You know, I got to come in and track the beat, and at the time
I was still with my other management. I really wanted to roll with
Hiphop. Cause I, I just needed some fresh air, you know what Im
sayin, cause I been there for a while, I appreciated what they did
for me, but, you know theres a time in every mans life where he
gotta make a change, try to move up to the next level. And that day I
came and I tracked the beat and I got to meet Jay-Z and he said, "oh
you a real soulful dude"
uh, played the song cause he already spit his verse by the time I got
to the studio, you know how he do it, one take. And he said
"check this out, tell me what you think of this, right here"
"tell me what you think of this." And I heard it, and I was thinking
like, man, I really wanted more like of the simple type Jay-Z, I aint
want like the, the more introspective, complicated rhy- or the, in my
personal opinion. So he asked me, "what you think of it?"
"so what you thinkin?"
And I was like, "man that shit tite,"
you know what Im sayin, man what Ima tell him? I was on the train
man, you know. So after that I went back home. And man Im, Im just
in Chicago, Im trying to do my thing. You know, I got groups. I got
acts Im trying to get on, and like there wasnt nothin really like
poppin off the way it should have been. One of my homeys that was one
of my artists, he got signed. But it was supposed to really go through
my production company, but he ended up going straight with the
company. So, like Im just straight holdin the phone, gettin the bad
news that dude was tryin to leave my company. And I got evicted at
the same time. So I went down and tracked the beats from him, I took
that money, came back, packed all my shit up in a U-Haul, maybe about
ten days before I had to actually get out. So I aint have to deal
with the landlord cause hes a jerk. Me and my mother drove to
"Come on, lets just go"
Newark, New Jersey. I hadnt even seen my apartment.
I remember I pulled up
"Kanye, baby, were here",
I unpacked all my shit. You know, we went to Ikea, I bought a
bed, I put the bed together myself. I loaded up all my equipment, and
the first beat I made was, uh, Heart of the City.
And Beans was still working on his album at that time, so I came up
there to Baseline, it was Beans birthday, matter of fact, and I
played like seven beats. And, you know I could see hes in the zone
he already had the beats that he wanted, I did nothing like already at
that time. But then Jay walked in. I remember he had a GuccI bucket
hat on. I remember it like, like it was yesterday. And Hiphop said
"yo play that one beat for him." And I played Heart of the City. And
really I made Heart of the City, I really wanted to give that beat to DMX.
"No I think Jay gon like this one right here".
And I played another beat, and I played another beat. And I remember that
GuccI bucket, he took it and like put it over his face and made one of
them faces like OOOOOOOOOOH. Two days later Im in Baseline and I seen
Dame. Dame didnt know who I was and I was like "yo whats up Im Kanye."
"Yo, you that kid, Kanye?"
"You that kid that gave all them beats to Jay?
Yo, this nigga got classics"
"Jay got classics, G."
You know I aint talkin shit.
Im like "oh shit." And all this time Im starstruck, man. Im
still thinking bout, you know Im picturing these niggaz on the show
The Streets is Watching, Im lookin, these were superstars in my
eyes. And they still are, you know. So, Jay came in and he spit all
these songs like in one day, and in two days... I gotta bring up one
thing, you know, come back to the story, the day I did the Cant be
Life beat on track, I remember Lenny S, he had some Louis Vuitton
sneakers on, he think he fly. And Hiphop was there, I think Tata, John
Minnelli, a bunch of people. I didnt know all these people at the
time they was in the room, and I said, "yo Jay I could rap." And I
spit this rap that said, uh "Im killin yall niggaz on that lyrical
shit. Mayonnaise colored Benz, I push miracle whips." And I saw his
eyes light up when I said that line. But you know the West, the rap
was like real wack and shit, so thats all the response.
He said "man that was tite."
"That, that was cool. That was hot."
That was it. You know, I aint get no deal then, hehe.
Okay, fast forward.
So, Blueprint, H to the Izzo, my first hit single. And I just
took that proudly, built relationships with people. My relationship
with KwelI I think was one of the best ones to ever happen to my
career as a rapper. Because, you know, of course later he allowed me
to go on tour with him. Man, I appre-- I love him for that. And at
this time, you know I didnt have a deal, I had songs, and I had
relationships with all these A&Rs, and they wanted beats from me, so
theyd call me up, Id play them some beats. "Gimme a beat that sound
like Jay-Z." You know, they dick riders. Whatever. So Ill play them
these post-Blueprint beats or whatever and then Ill play my shit. Ill
be like, "yo but I rap too." Hey, I guess they was lookin at me crazy
cause you know, cause I aint have a jersey on or whatever
Everybody out there listen here. I played them Jesus Walks and they
didnt sign me. You know what happened, it was some A&Rs that fucked
with me though, but then like the heads, itd be somebody at the
company thatll say "naw." Like, Dave LottI fucked with me, my
nigga Mel brought me to a bunch of labels. Jessica Rivera, man
"Man, you niggaz is stupid if yall dont sign Kanye, for real."
Im not gonna say nothin to mess my promotion up
"Yall niggaz is stupid". Lets just say I didnt get my deal.
The nigga that was behind me, I mean,
he wasnt even a nigga, you know?
The person who actually kicked everything off was Joe 3H from Capitol
Records. He wanted to sign me really bad.
"We gonna change the game, buddy."
Dame was like, "yo you got a deal with Capitol,
okay man, just make sure its not wack."
"you gotta make sure its not wack."
Then one day I just went ahead and played it, I wanted to
play some songs, cause you know Cam was in the room, Young Guru, and
Dame was in the room. So I played... actually its a song that youll
never hear, but maybe I might use it. So, its called Wow.
"I go to Jacob with 25 thou, you go with 25 hundred, wow
I got eleven plaques on my walls right now
You got your first gold single, damn, nigga, wow."
Like the chorus went. Dont bite that chorus, I might still use it. So
I play that song for him, and hes like "oh shit"
"Oh shit its not even wack."
"I aint gonna front, its kinda hot."
"its actually kinda hot."
Like they still werent looking at me
like a rapper. And Im sure Dame figured, like man. If he do a whole
album, if his raps is wack at least we can throw Cam on every song and
save the album, you know. So uh Dame took me into the office, and hes
like "yo man, we, we on a brick, we on a brick"
"you dont wanna catch a brick"
You gotta be under an umbrella, youll get rained on.
I told Hiphop and Hiphop was all, "oh, word?" Actually, even with
that I was still about to take the deal with Capitol cause it was
already on the table and cause of my relationship with 3H. That, you
know, cause I told him I was gonna do it, and Im a man of my word, I
was gonna roll with what I said I was gonna do. Then, you know, Im
not gonna name no names, but people told me, "oh hes just a producer
rapper" and told 3H that told the heads of the Capitol, and right--
the day Im talking about, I planned out everything I was gonna do
man, I had picked out clothes, I already started booking studio
sessions, I started arranging my album, thinking of marketing schemes
man I was ready to go. And they had Mel call me, they said
"yo... Capitol pulled on the deal"
"Yo, Capitol pulled out on the deal."
And, you know I told them that Rocafella was interested
and I dont know if they thought that was just something I was saying
to gas them up to try to push the price up or whatever. I went up... I
called G, I said, "man, you think we could still get that deal with Rocafella?"
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