Print without graphics"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 ain't
want like the, the more introspective, complicated rhy- or the, in my
personal opinion. So he asked me, "what you think of it?"
[Jay-Z:] "so what you thinkin?"
And I was like, "man that shit tite,"
you know what I'm sayin', man what I'ma tell him? I was on the train
man, you know. So after that I went back home. And man I'm, I'm just
in Chicago, I'm trying to do my thing. You know, I got groups. I got
acts I'm trying to get on, and like there wasn't 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 I'm 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 ain't have to deal
with the landlord 'cause he's a jerk. Me and my mother drove to
[Mother:] "Come on, let's just go"
Newark, New Jersey. I hadn't even seen my apartment.
I remember I pulled up
[Mother:] "Kanye, baby, we're 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 he's 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.
[Hiphop:] "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 I'm in Baseline and I seen
Dame. Dame didn't know who I was and I was like "yo what's up I'm Kanye."
[Dame:] "Yo, you that kid, Kanye?"
"You that kid that gave all them beats to Jay?
Yo, this nigga got classics"
[Dame:] "Jay got classics, G."
You know I ain't talkin shit.
I'm like "oh shit." And all this time I'm starstruck, man. I'm
still thinking 'bout, you know I'm picturing these niggaz on the show
The Streets is Watching, I'm 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 'Can't 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 didn't 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 "I'm killin y'all 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 that's all the response.
He said "man that was tite."
[Jay-Z:] "That, that was cool. That was hot."
That was it. You know, I ain't 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 didn't have a deal, I had songs, and I had
relationships with all these A&R's, and they wanted beats from me, so
they'd call me up, I'd play them some beats. "Gimme a beat that sound
like Jay-Z." You know, they dick riders. Whatever. So I'll play them
these post-Blueprint beats or whatever and then I'll play my shit. I'll
be like, "yo but I rap too." Hey, I guess they was lookin' at me crazy
'cause you know, 'cause I ain't have a jersey on or whatever
Everybody out there listen here. I played them 'Jesus Walks' and they
didn't sign me. You know what happened, it was some A&R's that fucked
with me though, but then like the heads, it'd be somebody at the
company that'll say "naw." Like, Dave LottI fucked with me, my
nigga Mel brought me to a bunch of labels. Jessica Rivera, man
[Jessica:] "Man, you niggaz is stupid if y'all don't sign Kanye, for real."
I'm not gonna say nothin to mess my promotion up
"Y'all niggaz is stupid". Let's just say I didn't get my deal.
The nigga that was behind me, I mean,
he wasn't 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.
[Joe:] "We gonna change the game, buddy."
Dame was like, "yo you got a deal with Capitol,
okay man, just make sure it's not wack."
[Dame:] "you gotta make sure it's 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 it's a song that you'll
never hear, but maybe I might use it. So, it's 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. Don't bite that chorus, I might still use it. So
I play that song for him, and he's like "oh shit"
[Dame:] "Oh shit it's not even wack."
"I ain't gonna front, it's kinda hot."
[Dame:] "it's actually kinda hot."
Like they still weren't looking at me
like a rapper. And I'm 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 he's
like "yo man, we, we on a brick, we on a brick"
[Dame:] "you don't wanna catch a brick"
You gotta be under an umbrella, you'll 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 I'm a man of my word, I
was gonna roll with what I said I was gonna do. Then, you know, I'm
not gonna name no names, but people told me, "oh he's just a producer
rapper" and told 3H that told the heads of the Capitol, and right--
the day I'm 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"
[Mel:] "Yo, Capitol pulled out on the deal."
And, you know I told them that Rocafella was interested
and I don't 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?"
Lyrics to / for Last Call by Kanye West.
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