Complex - Interview with Kanye West lyrics

So take me back to college, did you graduate from school? Nah, man. I'm a college dropout. You ain't heard the album title? Nah. That's the album title. Oh it is? Hey man, I'm right there with you. That's exactly what I want people to think with that title: “I'm right there with you.” I've thought about calling my sh** I'm Good, because that's a “cool” title, like just having a title that's like, “Yo, you can't criticize that.” But for me to try and put on the facade of being the coolest motherf**er ever, it's not going to come across like that. I'm not saying I'm the coolest motherf**er ever, I'm just saying I'm just a f**ing smart-a**. I got to put it in raps.” Tell me about growing up in Chicago. In Chicago you're going to do one of three things. You're either going to be sports—straight basketball or football—or you're going to be hip-hop, like really focus on hip-hop and the culture—or you going to be g**ning. You might be doing all this and gang-banging at the same time because 99 percent of people in Chicago is g**ning. We was g**ning in kindergarten. We was on the school bus throwing up gang signs like, “Which gang sign was which again?” Perpetrating and sh**. Moving our hats to the whatever side, and when the Starter coats came out, “I'ma get the Bulls and I'ma do this, this, this.” And if you wasn't none of that, you was just a f**ing lame and sh**. That's how Chicago is. This g**ning sh** is so real that you not going to front whatsoever. Once you grown and you see n***as getting their heads chopped off and you going to funerals, you either going to take it to the fullest or you going to be like, “Nah, it's not for me.” I know it's not for me. I know that. So basically, my main focus became music. I been making tracks since seventh grade. I was on the basketball team freshman year. I used to play for Eisenhower and we went to some tournament or something. But by soph*more year, I had been working on my music so much that by the time we went to tryouts, I'm just straight missing layups and sh**. You said you used to bring back slang and whatnot from the East Coast. Yeah. My father stayed in Delaware for the latter part of his life but his father was in the Air Force, so he had to fly around. He spent some of his high school years in Germany so he was never at one school. And they always stayed around white people. So when he finally got the opportunity to go to a black school everybody was like, “Yo, you talk white.” They wouldn't accept him. And when he was around white people, you were a n***a off the bat so they weren't trying to accept him. I seen how that hurt him. So whereas my father struggled with that, basically I learned how to speak every language. I always talk about racial issues—black people and white people interacting and racial profiling and all that—because I got locked up one day for having braids and driving in an Expedition. And they said, “Your braids is what gave you away.” How all this relates is—I ain't trying to front. I'm aware of sh**. Because a lot of rappers.... Am I supposed to get here and say, “Yo man, I sold d** and I did this?” Because I never did none of that. Is that automatically going to lower my record sales like crazy because I said I never sold crack? I apologize. I just went and got a job. Whatever. So what was the first thing you started building beats on? The Casio, that old sampler that everybody talks about they had. I didn't have that until some talentless dude down the street had it. And he would never let me keep it—he'd just come over with it. My mom had bought me a keyboard. Just to establish, she didn't know—I wanted to be a freestyle biker, I wanted to draw, make video games—so she didn't know I wanted to make beats. I remember one day when I was making beats in her crib, she told me, “Kanye, until you make money off this, it's a hobby.” But she's never the type to say nothing negative toward music. She wanted to get me the keyboard with the big keys so I could learn how to play. The other keyboards had small keys, but that one had sequences on it so I could play and save it. But she didn't buy me that one because it was $50 more. She was like, “I don't want to pay for that.” Then she turned around, totally redeeming herself, and she helped me get my ASR 10 keyboard. I really started getting into the music thing around freshman year—around the time of my short-lived hooping career. I was with my father when I was 14 years old talking about, “I want a Korg keyboard.” Because the best keyboard I ever saw was the Korg. So we went to a music shop and I said I want a Korg and the guy was like, “What kind of music do you make?” I said “hip-hop,” and he was like, “People like you do what they call sampling.” I could never figure out why EPMD beats were so much better than what I hear in my head. So he went up to show me a keyboard, it was an old Ensoniq and I hit a key and it played the drums from “Summertime.” I was like, “Oh sh**!” You would've thought I saw Michael Jackson or something. I was like “Damn. This is crazy. This sh** sounds so cold.” What records were pivotal to you? The reason I'm so real today is because of MC Hammer and Kid ‘n Play. Those were my favorite rappers back in the day. I felt like they was real. They making music that I wanted to hear. I remember someone played me some Jungle Brothers, and I was like, “Ew, I'm not feeling that right there.” De La Soul's “Me, Myself, and I” was the first hip-hop song I liked. At that point it was EPMD, Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Beastie Boys. Remember that? I'd be at my mama's crib. This is back when people used to sit they record player on top of they TV. What music do you listen to for inspiration? Midnight Marauders. I listen to certain cla**ics to figure out where I want to go. I listen to Lauryn Hill's album, Pharcyde's first album, that's one of my favorite albums of all time. That joint still sells 1,000 a week. You say you weren't feeling the Jungle Brothers. Where did you pick up your ear for that sound? I got that from No I.D., from Common Sense's first album, which is much later than the Jungle Brothers. It's definitely the same thing though. It's the same thing but the way they was doing it wasn't like they made me want to do it. It's kind of like how people had soul beats, but there's something about the way me, Just Blaze, Bink, and Jay Z did on The Blueprint that made everybody want to do it. People had throwback jerseys for the longest. I went out and bought that actual jersey soon as I saw Big Boi in the “Sky High” Goodie Mob video. There was something about Hov and Fabolous, something about the way they did it made everybody go out and get it. And I'm a good producer but the opportunity to have Hov rap on your beats makes all the difference in the world because he sets trends. People do what he does. They want to do whatever he does, he's like the poster child of industry, fashion, business, hustler [9], everything that people want to be. So when Hov rapped on soul beats everybody else wanted to rap on soul beats. You worked with Dead Prez, Jermaine Dupri, and the Harlem World sh** before 2000? Yep. Speaking of which, I just noticed that Harlem World had a joint from you and from Just Blaze. That was crazy right? Was that random? Ma$e is the type of rapper that wanted to give new producers that he felt a new drop. So let's not forget Ma$e, to a certain extent, found Just Blaze, Kanye West, and The Neptunes. That's a n***a that knows how to pick beats. Ma$e found them, but Hov—to a certain extent—made Just Blaze, Kanye West, and The Neptunes stars. When did you first start rapping? I've been rapping since third grade and I had to figure out at an early age about audience and who you're rapping to and saying the right thing to your audience. Right now I could spit any of my raps to a n***a on the corner, somebody in a barbershop, but I could go into a corporate office and say the same rap [10] and they will understand what I'm talking about. It's so universal. I remember I was trying to get in this talent show and the Fat Boys had a song so we formed a little group, we made ourselves be The Skinny Boys—it was OK to bite back in the days. So we got up there and we sang our song and the song was [singing] “The fat girls are back/And you know they will never be wack/The fat girls are back….” Why did I not take into consideration that our music instructor that we're performing this for, was like about 260 pounds? So at that point I figured out the audience and who you're rapping to could be the key to whether or not you make the talent show. I don't think that God gave me any specific talent other than the ability to learn how to do things. Because when I was focused on basketball, I was actually kind of cold but now I'm mad mediocre. I was an artist ever since I was little. When I was focusing on that, I won every contest and got a scholarship for my first year of college to go to the American Academy of Art and The Art Institute, but I went to the American Academy of Art. And now, if I sit down and try to draw, it's going to be decent, but it's not going to be like, “Yo, dog, you won a scholarship.” So now, look, I said, “I'm going to focus on beats fully.” And then I ended up doing the most beats on the first cla**ic album of the century, [The Blueprint]. Now, I'm partially responsible for the most cla**ic albums this century because of the Scarface. I know I need a real powerful way to word that, but I'm partially responsible for the most cla**ic albums this century because I focused on that. Now, is he going to be a good rapper? We got Grammy nominated for “H to the Izzo” for the album The Blueprint and I said, “Look, I'm going to focus on rap,” and I ended up on the hottest rap label in the world. What the f** I look like rapping? How did I end up on Roc-A-Fella? I never had a good voice. I never really had a good rapper story. I wasn't ever that much of a pimp where I just had mad girls. I never was shooting at n***as, so what was it? It was just focus. I decided I want to do this. That's another reason I want to rap, too. Not just to be a rapper, but to express my sarcastic, my a**hole opinion about things. My blunt, “Like, look dog, that's stupid to me,” opinion. I wanted the opportunity to not just be having hot shoes on, then the rapper see the shoes, and put them on TV. I want a chance. Let me do the photo shoot. Let me get a deal and see my face. Nobody really could understand the pa**ion I had for my music because my beats, as good as my f**in' raps are, still surpa** my raps. The only way that my raps could possibly be as good as my beats, I'd have to be as good as Eminem or as good as Jay Z [11] because that's the caliber of my beats. But I could still be not as good as Eminem or Jay Z and still be a number-one rap artist. It's hard to compete with my beats, man. Capitol, they offered me like a half million or something like that, then right before, I think one of the people at Capitol said, “Nah, I don't f** with Kanye because if he could really rap, Def Jam would've signed him or he'd be on the Roc.” So it was a catch-22. People were like, “Damn, if the Roc don't believe in him, then why should we go with him?” So they pa**ed. They pa**ed and I signed with Roc-A-Fella. Then they bring in 50 motherf**ing Cent and they pa**ed. So I want to definitely give props. In this article can we please put, “Gee Roberson, Hip-Hop, Dame Dash, Hova, and Kareem ‘Biggs' Burke changed my life.” I want to put all those names because I don't know who I could give more credit. Can I give more credit to Hip-Hop for realizing that I could actually be an artist and a producer and saying he wanted to manage me? Do I give more credit to Gee for dealing with Kanye the f**ing “I want it right now” a**hole every single day? Do I give props to Hov for establishing me as a true quality producer? Do I give props to Biggs for every song that I come in with, suggesting sh** like, “Yo, let's put Michael Jackson on the ‘Girls' remix,” you know what I'm saying? Do I give the props to Dame for signing me to Roc-A-Fella as an artist and saying, “Dog, listen. He can rap. I'm Dame Dash. I said it. f** with me.” This is what Dame told me when he heard it: “Yo, man. Yo on the real that sh** is scary, man. f** with me I'll fire n***as.” I was about to sign with Capitol Records and I just wanted to play some songs in the studio with Cam and these real rapping n***as just to see how far I got. So I played this one song and Dame was like, “Oh sh**! It's not even wack. It's not even wack! That sh** is kind of hot. OK, OK play some more.” Young Guru was telling me which songs to play, because he was the ghost A&R at Roc-A-Fella. So then I play “Jesus Walks” and he heard that, he's like, “Yo, Cam. Cam! We should sign Kanye. What you think, man? We could do like the East Coast Chronic!” Aside from Dre and Large Professor, there have not been that many producers who became successful rappers. How good is your new album going to be? I think Large Professor's dope. Anything I would say would be too arrogant at this point. But I feel like I really am going to be a very, very big artist. Not just a hip-hop artist or just an underground rapper.