Perched on a chair in a makeshift dressing room, Kanye backpedals a bit, and as a barber finishes giving him a shape-up, he takes a moment to regroup. “I used to go on interviews and the questions they’d ask me would be disrespectful in and of themselves. It wouldn’t be the questions you’d ask Jay-Z. I’d react in a certain way and [the press] would say, ‘Wow. Why’d you react like that? You’re wack.’”
Kanye turns his head away but continues talking, giving the impression that he’s less interested in a conversation than in having a forum in which to vent. “My thing is, if you don’t believe in it, nobody else is gonna believe in it. So a lot of the shit you hear [about me] comes from me fighting for my project… I knew what I had before the [sales numbers came in]. I used to tell people, ‘I’m gonna sell.’ That was my pitch to labels when they wouldn’t sign me.” Kanye looks straight ahead, his eyes twinkling. “So now that it’s happened, I had to apologize ‘cause I was just being a sore winner.”
He’s damn good and he knows it. As you’d expect from the rookie of the year, Kanye has charged off the bench, swinging and connecting like Bonds, posting Hall of Fame-worthy stats right out of the box. And even before he’d made the leap to the majors by signing with team Roc-A-Fella, Kanye had seized both the fans’ and industry’s attention by reigning as hip-hop and R&B’s go-to guy.
West—a former art-school student, who, as the title of the album suggests, abandoned his formal studies—has racked up an impressive list of production credits. Among them are Alicia Keys’ slice of Philly-soul cream cheese “You Don’t Know My Name,” Jay-Z’s “Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” and fellow-Chicagoan Twista’s former No. 1 hit “Slow Jamz.”
Like many a hot producer that preceded him, Kanye earned respect for being innovative and having the smarts to flip the script to ward off buyer burnout. There was no denying that the kid was nice, and if you didn’t know, Kanye lets you know. Even in an industry where egomania is expected and sometimes encouraged, Kanye’s one-man street team is worth marveling at: it has become as much a part of his backstory as his notable catalog of production work.
During this interview, Kanye mused about how magazine rating systems need to be rethought in order to take into consideration the amount of effort and time Kanye had expended on his album. “I had to fight to get the Harlem Boys Choir [for ‘Two Words’],” he says. “They wanted to give me the Hezekiah Walker Choir, but they came in all half-assed so I had to drive all the way [out to] the Hamptons [where they were performing] and pay the Harlem Boys Choir $10,000 to get them on the track. I went through a lot. It wasn’t, ‘Oh book the studio time, I’ll be there.’ I struggled.”
That’s why he dismisses any review that’s less than a full-out rave. “I got three-and-a-half stars in Rolling Stone. Obviously they don’t know shit about hip-hop,” he adds. “Even The Source: I got four-and-a-half mics. I thought it was a given I’d get five. If I never gave them another album again, all they would do three years from now is start re-rating The College Dropout.” He comes off like the guy in the bar who can’t stop recounting his exploits. Face it, Kanye West is feeling himself more than Pee-wee Herman in a porn theater.
“I saw [Oliver Stone’s movie] The Doors and saw the way Jim Morrison gave interviews. Mine aren’t half as bad as that,” Kanye offers in his defense, letting his guard down for a nanosecond only to let the machine rev back up again. “I definitely feel I am influential. You can’t take anything away from me if I have that ego. It’s part of the whole ambience, so just enjoy the ride.”
That, fans have done. The College Dropout is brimming with Kanye’s textured productions. “Pop music has a lot of instrumentation and I brought that to hip-hop,” he says. “I want to make songs that make you feel good. Every song is about a fucked-up situation and how we triumphed over it. I could sing about how much jewelry or how many clothes I wanna buy, or I could talk about the struggle I was going through when I was buying other people’s music and nobody was speaking for me.”
That’s deep. But point out the political nature of some of his tracks—e.g. the soaring “Spaceship,” which gives dignity to the kid trapped in a dead-end job—and Kanye demurs. “I don’t know any politician’s names, I’m not really talking about politics like that.” So if the college dropout is not political, what is he? Kanye thinks about it for a second then offers a cogent, if unapologetic assessment of himself:
“I’m more socially conscious than politically [conscious].”