- 100
- 12
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2012
Im completely infatuated with da demise of Roc-A-Fella Records. VOL. Rome burned slow
- 2,906
- 278
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2009
this one is recent around 2 min mark. bleek mans up about how stupid it was.
- 1,009
- 2,390
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2012
A Young Meek Millz posted taking notes
Last edited:
- 2,906
- 278
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2009
you can see the disbelief in the bul eyes. Dream chaser foreal.
Bend_The_Knee
formerly gotholesinmysocks
- 61,380
- 23,096
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2008
What I always wanted to know was what in THE HELL did Jay Z see in Bleek??
Where Jaz O, Fu-Schnickens at Hov?
Where Jaz O, Fu-Schnickens at Hov?
i live in texas
Banned
- 1,939
- 48
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2006
It saddens me to see what Peedi has become these days. I always say it and remind people that he was ahead of the game back in the days. 
- 106,583
- 78,233
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2011
See, now here's one of your recent non-forced-to-make-a-point threads I can get behind.
I get irked everytime I hear Jay's "I don't get dropped, I drop the label" line, cause that's really what happened, leaving a bunch of artists he came up with scattered throughout hip hop. There was nothing like the Roc in it's prime, multiple major artists and a handful of good ones to round out the squad. Every label/crew comes to a demise though for one reason or another, mostly egos, but at the high, they were the best thing going. 01-05 was
I get irked everytime I hear Jay's "I don't get dropped, I drop the label" line, cause that's really what happened, leaving a bunch of artists he came up with scattered throughout hip hop. There was nothing like the Roc in it's prime, multiple major artists and a handful of good ones to round out the squad. Every label/crew comes to a demise though for one reason or another, mostly egos, but at the high, they were the best thing going. 01-05 was
Last edited:
- 10,932
- 4,859
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2005
- 3,764
- 532
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2004
don't care what anyone says bleek was always ill to me and he's better than most of these cats on the radio now
still one of my fav songs of all time
Last edited:
Bend_The_Knee
formerly gotholesinmysocks
- 61,380
- 23,096
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2008
By you saying he's better than most of the dudes on the radio now just shows how in bad a shape hip hop is.
- 16,425
- 2,106
- Joined
- May 12, 2002
It saddens me to see what Peedi has become these days. I always say it and remind people that he was ahead of the game back in the days.
Peedi is that dude
- 3,764
- 532
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2004
Bend_The_Knee
formerly gotholesinmysocks
- 61,380
- 23,096
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2008
^Heard those before, didn't like 'em. Never been a fan of dude.
Thought he was good in Coming Of Age off RD but that's it. I'm sure there there are bleek fans.
Thought he was good in Coming Of Age off RD but that's it. I'm sure there there are bleek fans.
- 38,855
- 53,297
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2008
I also heard that
Interesting. Very interesting.
- 87,735
- 50,128
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2007
Honestly it makes me sick. I lean more to the battle with Nas being the first sings of trouble though. Although I'm not the biggest fan of Ol Man J**** I really he could've had the strongest squad in hip hop and the best run bar none had he put certain things aside and focused on making money solely.
Joe was one thing but he was still new, no down side there. He had the most to benefit from but to me the whole division between who Jay cosigned and Dipset was just plain ugly. Cam was really riding for the cause and at the time the rest of them would've followed his lead but all this nonsense with Jay and Dame ruined it.
Kanye picking a side or being forced to choose between the dude who brought him in and pushed him and a superstar was plain ugly and all types of foul.
Appreciate everything Dame and Jay did when it was going good for the most part though.
Joe was one thing but he was still new, no down side there. He had the most to benefit from but to me the whole division between who Jay cosigned and Dipset was just plain ugly. Cam was really riding for the cause and at the time the rest of them would've followed his lead but all this nonsense with Jay and Dame ruined it.
Kanye picking a side or being forced to choose between the dude who brought him in and pushed him and a superstar was plain ugly and all types of foul.
Appreciate everything Dame and Jay did when it was going good for the most part though.
Last edited:
- 30,180
- 33,263
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2006
It saddens me to see what Peedi has become these days. I always say it and remind people that he was ahead of the game back in the days.
Peedi was ill
futuremd
Banned
- 6,448
- 1,433
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2012
I blame Dame. Its also easy to blame Hov since he's been out right more successful since then.
EDIT: Round Here was tough, mainly for the southern T.I./Trick Daddy features.
EDIT: Round Here was tough, mainly for the southern T.I./Trick Daddy features.
Last edited:
futuremd
Banned
- 6,448
- 1,433
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2012
I don't see how it doesn't happen soon. He's already cool with most of State Property and if Beanie hadn't messed up, he'd have been at that Philly show too.Hov and Dame breakup and every day I wake-up
I keep thinking these dudes will do a interview one day and laugh about it but that **** ain't happening.
meek meals
Banned
- 6,867
- 1,769
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2012
- 28,190
- 12,536
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2003
How true is it that Jay wanted to sign 50 cent?
- 70,049
- 24,221
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2004
i seen this video at least 3 times...NEVER noticed meek thereA Young Meek Millz posted taking notes
- 70,049
- 24,221
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2004
choke no joke's on dame's day he found out def jam was doing jay-z's album behind his back.
- 70,049
- 24,221
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2004
http://www.mtv.com/bands/w/west_kanye/news_feature_081805/
all eyes on Kanye West.
Kanye West has never been at a loss for words. On his second album, Late Registration, he continues to stay out of the hip-hop box with his lyrics, rhyming about such topics as his grandmother's near-death, AIDS and conflict diamonds.
Out of the studio, of course, Kanye tends to be even more outspoken. And in his exclusive interview with MTV News' Sway Calloway, Ye opens up like he never has before. The Louis Vuitton don reveals for the first time his problems with the widespread homophobia in hip-hop, his battle with Beyoncé's boyfriend and why he was disloyal to the man who first championed him. He also admits to being a bit of a hypocrite. And that's only the beginning ...
[table][tr][td][img]http://www.mtv.com/bands/w/west_kanye/news_feature_081805/images/sub_od_table.jpg[/img][/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td][img]http://www.mtv.com/bands/w/west_kanye/news_feature_081805/images/od.jpg[/img][/td][td]See excerpts from the Kanye West interview in Overdrive
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][/table]
Sway: Here we are, "All Eyes on Kanye West." It's been a few years since you first ran up to MTV and said, "I want my own 'All Eyes On.' " Remember that?
Kanye West: Yeah. I'm trying to hide the smile, though. I don't wanna break my cool.
Sway: No, keep your cool for a second. You've come a long way, you're a true rags-to-riches story. When you first came to New York you really didn't have much in your pocket. You were a new artist, so people gave you their honest opinion, and you fought them all the way. You had the same thing with your own record label, and even with Jay-Z. What happened in that situation?
West: First of all, it was just my whole look — my whole aesthetic was very un-Roc-A-Fella. I had Italian shoes, my size medium T-shirts. I dress kind of like a producer, like all producers dress like this. Picture how it looks with me busting a hard rap with a tight T-shirt on. And I'm rapping to Jay-Z, I'm rapping to the greatest and one of the more gangster rappers out there. I was like, "Yeah, Jay," and I've got the suction-cup T-shirt on. He's looking like, "Yo, I don't think this is gonna work right here."
Sway: Jay actually said that to you?
West: No, but he had that look in his eyes.
They were expecting [my rapping] to be outright terrible. So that was just such a shocker to them that I was actually not wack. And Dame Dash figured out a way that he thought it could work. He said I would be like the hip-hop Babyface, we could do an album and it could be like The Chronic, and we can put Cam'ron on it, Jay on it. You know, he's just a mastermind.
[table][tr][td][img]http://www.mtv.com/bands/w/west_kanye/news_feature_081805/images/photos_188.jpg[/img][/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][td]
Exclusive behind-the-scenes photos of Kanye's "All Eyes On"
[/td][/tr][/table]
Sway: So Dame Dash pretty much put his stamp on you and validated you, in a sense. When the Roc-A-Fella team broke up recently, you chose to stick with Jay-Z. Why did you choose to stick with him when it seems that Dame was the one who supported you in the beginning? Do you think that's disloyal?
West: [He pauses.] Um, yeah.
Sway: You do think it's disloyal?
West: Yup. But you gotta make that decision. I felt like with the relationship that me and Jay built after I was on Roc-A-Fella, we had built a different type of relationship, it was a working musical relationship because of the production, and I built more like a business relationship with Dame because of all the ventures he wanted to involve me with. And not to be cliché, but it's like I was between a rock and a hard place. And it was just like if your parents were to divorce.
Sway: Let's talk about your relationship with Jay-Z.
West: Me and Jay are really close. You know, Jay is one of those people where ... you can't never [truly stop being starstruck around] Jay-Z. I idolize him for certain aspects and he would be my greatest competition, so if I'm writing a rap, I'm writing a rap to beat Jay.
Sway: You think you'll ever beat him?
West: Yeah, I think my verse is better on "Never Let Me Down." I cheated, though, 'cause I had the verse, it was a song that he did and he didn't use it on Blueprint and I went back and spent mad time writing line-for-line trying to beat him out. But I ain't gonna say no politically correct stuff — I think I got him on that.
[table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][td]
"Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)"
Late Registration
(Roc-A-Fella Records)
[/td][/tr][/table]
Sway: You have Nas on the song "We Major" on your album. Nas is Jay-Z's nemesis, and you obviously put Nas on this track without Jay knowing, right?
West: Mmmhmm.
Sway: What made you decide to do that?
West: Because Nas is one of my idols.
Sway: Can you see from an outside perspective how somebody might question your loyalty again, like, "How can Kanye do a record with Nas?" You don't see how that might look?
West: I think that God spared my life to make music and to help people, to always put out positive energy. One of the reasons why I don't have beef with any rapper or with anybody is because of the positive energy I put out. So even if I hold myself up, I'm not putting anybody else down. Let me tell you this, we made this like Jay's favorite song on the album. So the thing is, when something is so good, you can't deny it. When you hear the horns on "We Major" and you hear the chorus come in and you hear Nas, that could like warm somebody's heart. Good music can break through anything and maybe start to break down the wall between two of the greatest MCs that we have.
[table][tr][td]
[/td][td]
[/td][td]NEXT: Is God too busy to help Kanye with his second album? Plus, Kanye's hypocrisy, fear, and love for Fiona Apple ...[/td][/tr][/table][table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][/table]
Sway: Adam Levine from Maroon 5 is on your track "Heard 'Em Say." How did you get him on a record?
West: Rick Rubin gave me his number. We were on a plane to Rome, to some awards show where I didn't win. I got robbed again. Um ...
Sway: Did you throw a temper tantrum?
West: I was really more upset that you couldn't actually see my outfit on the show. I had this dope-***, pink-and-brown outfit. But I just always like to play people new music, and "Heard 'Em Say" was the first song I had recorded for the new album. So I had it in my iPod, and on the plane over we were sittin' up in first class, where artists sit. And I played it for him and he said, "Yo, this reminds me of a song that I wrote but I don't know if my band will want to do it. It sounds kind of R&B. But I want to do the song." I said, "Yo, we should work together." And that's all it was.
He came to the studio right after the Grammys and he sang the song and the melody fit perfect with it. He added something to it, it was just like the magic, the frosting on top. And that's one of those times that God is working in the studio with you. Those are those days that he's really on his job.
[table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][td]
"The New Workout Plan"
The College Dropout
(Roc-A-Fella Records)
[/td][/tr][/table]
One of the reasons I defended the first album so much was I was scared that I couldn't make an album comparable to the first one. Again, 'cause I know I didn't make it by myself — I know that God had heavy involvement in it. And I didn't know if he might have been tryin' to focus on someone else's career, to get 'em to the point where I'm at. Not that he can't do two things at once. But there's times with "Jesus Walks," with the blood diamonds, with "Crack Music," where I know that God is speaking through me. I know that's something he wants me to say. I know he's connecting people. He put me on that plane with Adam to bring out that song.
Sway: Tell me about "Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)."
West: Mark Romanek, the director that did Jay's "99 Problems," and Q-Tip both brought up blood diamonds. They said, "That's what I think about when I hear diamonds. I think about kids getting killed, getting amputated in West Africa." And Q-Tip's like, "Sierra Leone," and I'm like, "Where?" And I remember him spelling it out for me and me looking on the Internet and finding out more. I think that was just one of those situations where I just set out to entertain, but every now and then God taps me on the shoulder and says, "Yo, I want you to do this right here," so he'll place angels in my path and one angel will lead to another angel and it's like a treasure hunt or something. And I finally found the gold mine, which was the video "Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)."
[table][tr][td][img]http://www.mtv.com/bands/w/west_kanye/news_feature_081805/images/flip2_188.jpg[/img] [/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][td]
Lil' Kim, Common attend Kanye West's Late Registration listening session
[/td][/tr][/table]
With the remix verse, the diamond industry's thinking I'm doing something to try to hurt them. But how is it hurting y'all for me to just tell people that there was a 10-year war in Sierra Leone where black people were killing each other over diamonds and that it was a monopoly and that there are still situations that are next to slave labor, with people working for two cups of rice a day?
Sway: So you come into that knowledge and put that in the remix, but you still wear a lot of diamonds yourself. What's the logic behind that?
West: How are you a human being, would be more of the question, like, "How are you still human when you know what's going on? How do you still wear what it took your whole life to get?"
Sway: Someone from the outside might say, "There he goes again," and say that that's borderline hypocritical.
West: Yeah, a whole part about being a human is to be a hypocrite. They say that if you're an artist you have to stand for this, and they try to discredit you. Like they'll try to discredit Dr. King or Bill Cosby or Jesse Jackson 'cause they say that they saw them with a woman or something. So what does that have to do with what Cosby's TV show meant for us, what it meant for the black image and meant for our esteem, like "Damn, we could do that, we don't have to be like 'Good Times' all in the projects"? What does that take away from Martin Luther King, from what he did?
Sway: Do you admit to being self-conscious?
West: How could you be in this situation with this amount of pressure and this many people looking at you, waiting for you to show them a magic Houdini trick or a David Blaine, waiting for you to not make it out of your chains when the casket goes into the water, and not be self-conscious? How could you not be scared when you step out on that stage? How can I not be scared on the second album? How could I not be scared when I dropped "Diamonds" and there's people who say, "I don't like 'Diamonds' "?
[table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][td]
"All Falls Down"
The College Dropout
(Roc-A-Fella Records)
[/td][/tr][/table]
Sway: With this Late Registration album, when you wanted to get it complete, you went to another producer, Jon Brion, who is known for a lot of records, but it's what he's done for Fiona Apple that attracted you. What made you want to work with him?
West: I always loved that album [Fiona Apple's When the Pawn Hits ...] so much. It hit me in a way and I wanted to know, who got the drum sounding like that? Who went into these dark chords, these string arrangements? Who brought Fiona's pain to life? I needed someone that could bring my plight to life.
And the Fiona Apple album kind of sounded similar to Portishead, too. I just felt no one was doing that in hip-hop, no rapper has ever captured that sound and rapped on it. It's like, how many more sped-up soul samples do you want? We gotta push the envelope a little bit. And I always wanted to feel like I was rapping at the top of a mountain or something. On "Diamonds," when the harpsichord and the music crescendos with the horns in the back and the drum rolls and everything, and I'm like, "Right then, my body got still like a paraplegic .../ Yeah, the beat cold but the flow is anemic ..." That moment in that song right there is what hip-hop is about.
[table][tr][td]
[/td][td]
[/td][td]NEXT: 'Anybody that was gay I was like, yo, get away from me'; plus, the situation with Lauryn Hill ...[/td][/tr][/table][table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][/table]
Sway: What role did your mother play in your life? You have a song dedicated to her on the album called "Hey Mama."
West: After my parents got divorced and we moved to Chicago when I was 3, I would go see my father on Christmas, spring break and summer. My father was my everything, but during the rest of the time, my mother was my everything. Of course there's a good side to that, but the bad side of that is that people call you a mama's boy. It gets to the point that when you go to high school and you wasn't out in the streets like that, and you ain't have no father figure, or you wasn't around your father all the time, who you gonna act like? You gonna act like your mother. ... And then everybody in high school be like, "Yo, you actin' like a f--. Dog, you gay?" And I used to deal with that when I was in high school.
[table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][td]
"Get 'Em High" (live)
The College Dropout
(Roc-A-Fella Records)
[/td][/tr][/table]
And what happened was it made me kind of homophobic, 'cause I would go back and question myself, like, "Damn, why does everyone else walk like this, and I walk like this?" People be like, "Yo fam, look at you. Look at how you act." If you see something and you don't want to be that because there's such a negative connotation toward it, you try to separate yourself from it so much that it made me homophobic by the time I was through high school. Anybody that was gay I was like, "Yo, get away from me." And like Tupac said, "Started hangin' with the thugs," and you look up and all my friends were really thugged out. It's like I was racing to try to find that constant masculine role model right there, right in front of me. I would use the word "f--" and always look down upon gays. But then my cousin told me that another one of my cousins was gay, and I loved him, he's one of my favorite cousins. And at that point it was kind of like a turning point when I was like, "Yo, this my cousin, I love him and I been discriminating against gays."
But everybody in hip-hop discriminates against gay people. Matter of fact, the exact opposite word of "hip-hop," I think, is "gay." Like yo, you play a record and if it's wack, "That's gay, dog!" And I wanna just come on TV and just tell my rappers, just tell my friends, "Yo, stop it fam."
Sway: So Kanye, the VMAs are coming up. We know your history with awards shows. If you don't win one this year, will you be upset?
West: If I ain't win, I can't say I wouldn't be disappointed. I definitely wouldn't spaz out and go up there. I did that. I'm supposed to do that every time? I gotta switch the game up.
Sway: What was it like for you when you performed "Jesus Walks" at last year's show?
[table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][td]
"Through the Wire"
The College Dropout
(Roc-A-Fella Records)
[/td][/tr][/table]
West: You know what, just to have Syleena Johnson up there [was great]. 'Cause it was a whole thing where they said, "Yo, Lauryn Hill might be able to perform 'All Falls Down' with you." And that's one of those things that you say, "Damn, I could perform with Lauryn on the VMAs." That would be incredible, but I had already got Syleena Johnson her ticket to come out. And I could've gone to Syleena and been like, "Yo, Lauryn is gonna perform." But on the song I said, "Just like a safety belt, you saved my life." Do you think that I'd turn around and tell Syleena she not gonna perform?
Sway: What about Lauryn Hill, because I know she's working on a new album and it was rumored that you guys did a couple of songs together.
West: Sony wanted to put me with her, but I was working on my album, working on Common's album at the time, so I didn't have time to really focus in. And they gave me one opportunity to do a demo track for her, or do one of her tracks but pre-produce it. And I went in, and let's just say it wasn't my best work. I can't say I got kicked off the project, 'cause I was never truly on it. I love Lauryn, I love the music she's done for us until this point. But I always wanted to say this: I've never actually met or spoken to Lauryn.
Sway: So you've never actually met Lauryn Hill?
West: Met or spoken to her. That's such a sound bite right there.
Sway: It was also rumored that you might be working with Beyoncé, too.
West: Yeah, I'm sure we'll do something together. 'Cause I'm mad, mad cool with her boyfriend.
all eyes on Kanye West.
Kanye West has never been at a loss for words. On his second album, Late Registration, he continues to stay out of the hip-hop box with his lyrics, rhyming about such topics as his grandmother's near-death, AIDS and conflict diamonds.
Out of the studio, of course, Kanye tends to be even more outspoken. And in his exclusive interview with MTV News' Sway Calloway, Ye opens up like he never has before. The Louis Vuitton don reveals for the first time his problems with the widespread homophobia in hip-hop, his battle with Beyoncé's boyfriend and why he was disloyal to the man who first championed him. He also admits to being a bit of a hypocrite. And that's only the beginning ...
[table][tr][td][img]http://www.mtv.com/bands/w/west_kanye/news_feature_081805/images/sub_od_table.jpg[/img][/td][/tr][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
Sway: Here we are, "All Eyes on Kanye West." It's been a few years since you first ran up to MTV and said, "I want my own 'All Eyes On.' " Remember that?
Kanye West: Yeah. I'm trying to hide the smile, though. I don't wanna break my cool.
Sway: No, keep your cool for a second. You've come a long way, you're a true rags-to-riches story. When you first came to New York you really didn't have much in your pocket. You were a new artist, so people gave you their honest opinion, and you fought them all the way. You had the same thing with your own record label, and even with Jay-Z. What happened in that situation?
West: First of all, it was just my whole look — my whole aesthetic was very un-Roc-A-Fella. I had Italian shoes, my size medium T-shirts. I dress kind of like a producer, like all producers dress like this. Picture how it looks with me busting a hard rap with a tight T-shirt on. And I'm rapping to Jay-Z, I'm rapping to the greatest and one of the more gangster rappers out there. I was like, "Yeah, Jay," and I've got the suction-cup T-shirt on. He's looking like, "Yo, I don't think this is gonna work right here."
Sway: Jay actually said that to you?
West: No, but he had that look in his eyes.
They were expecting [my rapping] to be outright terrible. So that was just such a shocker to them that I was actually not wack. And Dame Dash figured out a way that he thought it could work. He said I would be like the hip-hop Babyface, we could do an album and it could be like The Chronic, and we can put Cam'ron on it, Jay on it. You know, he's just a mastermind.
[table][tr][td][img]http://www.mtv.com/bands/w/west_kanye/news_feature_081805/images/photos_188.jpg[/img][/td][/tr][tr][td]
Exclusive behind-the-scenes photos of Kanye's "All Eyes On"
[/td][/tr][/table]
Sway: So Dame Dash pretty much put his stamp on you and validated you, in a sense. When the Roc-A-Fella team broke up recently, you chose to stick with Jay-Z. Why did you choose to stick with him when it seems that Dame was the one who supported you in the beginning? Do you think that's disloyal?
West: [He pauses.] Um, yeah.
Sway: You do think it's disloyal?
West: Yup. But you gotta make that decision. I felt like with the relationship that me and Jay built after I was on Roc-A-Fella, we had built a different type of relationship, it was a working musical relationship because of the production, and I built more like a business relationship with Dame because of all the ventures he wanted to involve me with. And not to be cliché, but it's like I was between a rock and a hard place. And it was just like if your parents were to divorce.
Sway: Let's talk about your relationship with Jay-Z.
West: Me and Jay are really close. You know, Jay is one of those people where ... you can't never [truly stop being starstruck around] Jay-Z. I idolize him for certain aspects and he would be my greatest competition, so if I'm writing a rap, I'm writing a rap to beat Jay.
Sway: You think you'll ever beat him?
West: Yeah, I think my verse is better on "Never Let Me Down." I cheated, though, 'cause I had the verse, it was a song that he did and he didn't use it on Blueprint and I went back and spent mad time writing line-for-line trying to beat him out. But I ain't gonna say no politically correct stuff — I think I got him on that.
[table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
"Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)"
Late Registration
(Roc-A-Fella Records)
[/td][/tr][/table]
Sway: You have Nas on the song "We Major" on your album. Nas is Jay-Z's nemesis, and you obviously put Nas on this track without Jay knowing, right?
West: Mmmhmm.
Sway: What made you decide to do that?
West: Because Nas is one of my idols.
Sway: Can you see from an outside perspective how somebody might question your loyalty again, like, "How can Kanye do a record with Nas?" You don't see how that might look?
West: I think that God spared my life to make music and to help people, to always put out positive energy. One of the reasons why I don't have beef with any rapper or with anybody is because of the positive energy I put out. So even if I hold myself up, I'm not putting anybody else down. Let me tell you this, we made this like Jay's favorite song on the album. So the thing is, when something is so good, you can't deny it. When you hear the horns on "We Major" and you hear the chorus come in and you hear Nas, that could like warm somebody's heart. Good music can break through anything and maybe start to break down the wall between two of the greatest MCs that we have.
[table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][/table]
West: Rick Rubin gave me his number. We were on a plane to Rome, to some awards show where I didn't win. I got robbed again. Um ...
Sway: Did you throw a temper tantrum?
West: I was really more upset that you couldn't actually see my outfit on the show. I had this dope-***, pink-and-brown outfit. But I just always like to play people new music, and "Heard 'Em Say" was the first song I had recorded for the new album. So I had it in my iPod, and on the plane over we were sittin' up in first class, where artists sit. And I played it for him and he said, "Yo, this reminds me of a song that I wrote but I don't know if my band will want to do it. It sounds kind of R&B. But I want to do the song." I said, "Yo, we should work together." And that's all it was.
He came to the studio right after the Grammys and he sang the song and the melody fit perfect with it. He added something to it, it was just like the magic, the frosting on top. And that's one of those times that God is working in the studio with you. Those are those days that he's really on his job.
[table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
"The New Workout Plan"
The College Dropout
(Roc-A-Fella Records)
[/td][/tr][/table]
One of the reasons I defended the first album so much was I was scared that I couldn't make an album comparable to the first one. Again, 'cause I know I didn't make it by myself — I know that God had heavy involvement in it. And I didn't know if he might have been tryin' to focus on someone else's career, to get 'em to the point where I'm at. Not that he can't do two things at once. But there's times with "Jesus Walks," with the blood diamonds, with "Crack Music," where I know that God is speaking through me. I know that's something he wants me to say. I know he's connecting people. He put me on that plane with Adam to bring out that song.
Sway: Tell me about "Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)."
West: Mark Romanek, the director that did Jay's "99 Problems," and Q-Tip both brought up blood diamonds. They said, "That's what I think about when I hear diamonds. I think about kids getting killed, getting amputated in West Africa." And Q-Tip's like, "Sierra Leone," and I'm like, "Where?" And I remember him spelling it out for me and me looking on the Internet and finding out more. I think that was just one of those situations where I just set out to entertain, but every now and then God taps me on the shoulder and says, "Yo, I want you to do this right here," so he'll place angels in my path and one angel will lead to another angel and it's like a treasure hunt or something. And I finally found the gold mine, which was the video "Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)."
[table][tr][td][img]http://www.mtv.com/bands/w/west_kanye/news_feature_081805/images/flip2_188.jpg[/img] [/td][/tr][tr][td]
Lil' Kim, Common attend Kanye West's Late Registration listening session
[/td][/tr][/table]
With the remix verse, the diamond industry's thinking I'm doing something to try to hurt them. But how is it hurting y'all for me to just tell people that there was a 10-year war in Sierra Leone where black people were killing each other over diamonds and that it was a monopoly and that there are still situations that are next to slave labor, with people working for two cups of rice a day?
Sway: So you come into that knowledge and put that in the remix, but you still wear a lot of diamonds yourself. What's the logic behind that?
West: How are you a human being, would be more of the question, like, "How are you still human when you know what's going on? How do you still wear what it took your whole life to get?"
Sway: Someone from the outside might say, "There he goes again," and say that that's borderline hypocritical.
West: Yeah, a whole part about being a human is to be a hypocrite. They say that if you're an artist you have to stand for this, and they try to discredit you. Like they'll try to discredit Dr. King or Bill Cosby or Jesse Jackson 'cause they say that they saw them with a woman or something. So what does that have to do with what Cosby's TV show meant for us, what it meant for the black image and meant for our esteem, like "Damn, we could do that, we don't have to be like 'Good Times' all in the projects"? What does that take away from Martin Luther King, from what he did?
Sway: Do you admit to being self-conscious?
West: How could you be in this situation with this amount of pressure and this many people looking at you, waiting for you to show them a magic Houdini trick or a David Blaine, waiting for you to not make it out of your chains when the casket goes into the water, and not be self-conscious? How could you not be scared when you step out on that stage? How can I not be scared on the second album? How could I not be scared when I dropped "Diamonds" and there's people who say, "I don't like 'Diamonds' "?
[table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
"All Falls Down"
The College Dropout
(Roc-A-Fella Records)
[/td][/tr][/table]
Sway: With this Late Registration album, when you wanted to get it complete, you went to another producer, Jon Brion, who is known for a lot of records, but it's what he's done for Fiona Apple that attracted you. What made you want to work with him?
West: I always loved that album [Fiona Apple's When the Pawn Hits ...] so much. It hit me in a way and I wanted to know, who got the drum sounding like that? Who went into these dark chords, these string arrangements? Who brought Fiona's pain to life? I needed someone that could bring my plight to life.
And the Fiona Apple album kind of sounded similar to Portishead, too. I just felt no one was doing that in hip-hop, no rapper has ever captured that sound and rapped on it. It's like, how many more sped-up soul samples do you want? We gotta push the envelope a little bit. And I always wanted to feel like I was rapping at the top of a mountain or something. On "Diamonds," when the harpsichord and the music crescendos with the horns in the back and the drum rolls and everything, and I'm like, "Right then, my body got still like a paraplegic .../ Yeah, the beat cold but the flow is anemic ..." That moment in that song right there is what hip-hop is about.
[table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][/table]
Sway: What role did your mother play in your life? You have a song dedicated to her on the album called "Hey Mama."
West: After my parents got divorced and we moved to Chicago when I was 3, I would go see my father on Christmas, spring break and summer. My father was my everything, but during the rest of the time, my mother was my everything. Of course there's a good side to that, but the bad side of that is that people call you a mama's boy. It gets to the point that when you go to high school and you wasn't out in the streets like that, and you ain't have no father figure, or you wasn't around your father all the time, who you gonna act like? You gonna act like your mother. ... And then everybody in high school be like, "Yo, you actin' like a f--. Dog, you gay?" And I used to deal with that when I was in high school.
[table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
"Get 'Em High" (live)
The College Dropout
(Roc-A-Fella Records)
[/td][/tr][/table]
And what happened was it made me kind of homophobic, 'cause I would go back and question myself, like, "Damn, why does everyone else walk like this, and I walk like this?" People be like, "Yo fam, look at you. Look at how you act." If you see something and you don't want to be that because there's such a negative connotation toward it, you try to separate yourself from it so much that it made me homophobic by the time I was through high school. Anybody that was gay I was like, "Yo, get away from me." And like Tupac said, "Started hangin' with the thugs," and you look up and all my friends were really thugged out. It's like I was racing to try to find that constant masculine role model right there, right in front of me. I would use the word "f--" and always look down upon gays. But then my cousin told me that another one of my cousins was gay, and I loved him, he's one of my favorite cousins. And at that point it was kind of like a turning point when I was like, "Yo, this my cousin, I love him and I been discriminating against gays."
But everybody in hip-hop discriminates against gay people. Matter of fact, the exact opposite word of "hip-hop," I think, is "gay." Like yo, you play a record and if it's wack, "That's gay, dog!" And I wanna just come on TV and just tell my rappers, just tell my friends, "Yo, stop it fam."
Sway: So Kanye, the VMAs are coming up. We know your history with awards shows. If you don't win one this year, will you be upset?
West: If I ain't win, I can't say I wouldn't be disappointed. I definitely wouldn't spaz out and go up there. I did that. I'm supposed to do that every time? I gotta switch the game up.
Sway: What was it like for you when you performed "Jesus Walks" at last year's show?
[table][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td]
"Through the Wire"
The College Dropout
(Roc-A-Fella Records)
[/td][/tr][/table]
West: You know what, just to have Syleena Johnson up there [was great]. 'Cause it was a whole thing where they said, "Yo, Lauryn Hill might be able to perform 'All Falls Down' with you." And that's one of those things that you say, "Damn, I could perform with Lauryn on the VMAs." That would be incredible, but I had already got Syleena Johnson her ticket to come out. And I could've gone to Syleena and been like, "Yo, Lauryn is gonna perform." But on the song I said, "Just like a safety belt, you saved my life." Do you think that I'd turn around and tell Syleena she not gonna perform?
Sway: What about Lauryn Hill, because I know she's working on a new album and it was rumored that you guys did a couple of songs together.
West: Sony wanted to put me with her, but I was working on my album, working on Common's album at the time, so I didn't have time to really focus in. And they gave me one opportunity to do a demo track for her, or do one of her tracks but pre-produce it. And I went in, and let's just say it wasn't my best work. I can't say I got kicked off the project, 'cause I was never truly on it. I love Lauryn, I love the music she's done for us until this point. But I always wanted to say this: I've never actually met or spoken to Lauryn.
Sway: So you've never actually met Lauryn Hill?
West: Met or spoken to her. That's such a sound bite right there.
Sway: It was also rumored that you might be working with Beyoncé, too.
West: Yeah, I'm sure we'll do something together. 'Cause I'm mad, mad cool with her boyfriend.
- 70,049
- 24,221
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2004
a clip off of "this is jim jones" documentary that explains da roc break up from jim jones's point of view.
- 70,049
- 24,221
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2004
beanie sigel's take on da rocafella break up, real recent interview