At this moment in human history, it would be difficult to name a more celebrated, more vilified or more ubiquitous cultural figure than
Kanye West. His recent pronouncement to Zane Lowe ("
We are culture.
Rap is the new rock and roll... We the biggest rock stars, and I’m the biggest of all of them") may have been self-important, but it wasn't the slightest bit exaggerated. So it's hard to believe that just ten years ago today, the Chicago-born producer responsible for Jay Z's "
Takeover" released his enormously influential debut album,
The College Dropout. Arriving almost exactly a year after
50 Cent's massive debut
Get Rich Or Die Tryin', Kanye's music and persona could not have been more different than the Queens MC with all the bullet wounds. "
Wasn't talkin' bout coke and birds," he said on his lead single, "
It was more like spoken word." Not everybody was a believer from the jump, but Yeezy himself always saw the vision clearly.
Ten years later Kanye's lovable college bear mascot has morphed into the fearsome
Kanyeti and the bejeweled
Margiela mask, while his sound has evolved from what one writer called "
the heady chipmunk-soul exuberance of The College Dropout" to the brutal digital minimalism of Yeezus. During that 10-year run, Complex and Kanye have enjoyed a special creative kinship. At every step along the way, one thing has remained consistent: Kanye's laserlike focus on perfection and his unwillingness to compromise on even the smallest detail. In that spirit we're celebrating the
10th anniversary of Mr. West's seminal debut with a next-level digital cover featuring a never-before-published 2002 interview between Kanye West and
Complex chief content officer
Noah Callahan-Bever. Much more than just a throwback Q&A, what emerges from this conversation is that Kanye has always known exactly where he was going, even though it took the rest of us a while to catch on. NCB and Yeezy's dialogue is accompanied by evocative illustrations by
Sam Rodriguez and animation by
Robert Hribernick that brings select moments from their interview (
including a hot freestyle) to life. We're also rolling out associate editor
Insanul Ahmed's definitive oral history of the making of The College Dropout. Keep checking back for more exclusive Kantent during
Complex's "
The College Dropout" week. As Ye put it ten years ago in his first Complex cover story: "
You can't take anything away from me if I have that ego. It's part of the whole ambiance, so just enjoy the ride.”
By: Rob Kenner / Complex Magazine
H O N O R A R Y D E G R E E
Interview by: Noah Callahan-Bever
THE COLLEGE DROPOUT 10 YEARS LATER
KANYE WEST ALWAYS KNEW HE WAS A GENIUS—THE REST OF THE WORLD JUST TOOK A LITTLE LONGER TO REALIZE IT.
ON THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS SEMINAL DEBUT ALBUM, WE REVISIT A CONVERSATION WITH YOUNG YEEZY, AND BEHOLD THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME.
WHEN PEOPLE KNOW THAT YOU KNOW KANYE WEST—THESE DAYS, AT LEAST—YOU GET A LOT OF, “CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT HE SAID ON [INSERT ZANE LOWE/BREAKFAST CLUB/SWAY/CONCERT RANT, ETC….]?”
And I always say, “
Yeah, I can totally believe it.“ He's been saying the same things since I first met him in August of 2002: Kanye West is a supreme talent with a definite vision and a ridiculous work ethic, and will you all just stop questioning him and get the hell out of his way?
Today he‘s a lot more accomplished, but faces the same skepticism. Consequently, he‘s a lot more frustrated, too.
It may be hard to recall in this era of hip-hop—where personal style trumps street credibility and rappers are emerging from all economic classes, ethnicities, and sexual orientations—exactly how unlikely Kanye West’s musical ascent was 10 years ago. 50 Cent was king and everyone else rapping was vying to be the second hardest man alive. As a result, despite West‘s successes producing for Jay Z and having a demo containing “
Jesus Walks,” he could not catch a break. Columbia passed on him. Rawkus passed on him. Even Jay Z didn't see it. West almost ended up in Capitol’s house of (zero) hits, right next to Dilated Peoples.
But that didn’t happen. Because Kanye West is Kanye West. And everything he says about himself, he means that shit, like exclamation, exclamation, exclamation!!!
And it‘s a lot. I get it. When I first met him at Baseline Studios, during a Blueprint 2 session, so I could interview him for Mass Appeal, I wasn’t prepared for the full-on onslaught of epic self-confidence and shameless self-evangelizing, either. Coming from a family of low-key arrogant brainiacs that champion feigned humility over braggart salesmanship, I too was taken aback. I was expecting your typical beat-making rap nerd. A guy like me who would want to talk about drum fills and the difference between the compression on an MPC and an ASR. To my chagrin, Kanye was way more interested in discussing his adidas, which were admittedly fire, and pointing out that he had been wearing them in the studio before certain other MCs name-dropped them on their songs. When I threw on the recorder and tried to steer the conversation to music, he basically dismissed all my queries about beats and, incredulous that I wasn't yet up on his budding rhyme career—remember, this was pre-car crash, pre-”
The Bounce,“ and pre-Get Well Soon—started rapping at me. Here‘s the scene: Early September, 2002. It‘s late afternoon and I‘m standing on the sidewalk in front of Baseline on 27th Street. The door to Kanye‘s Benz truck is open and he‘s sitting in the passenger seat, half inside and half outside the car. He‘s cueing beats on the stereo at ground-shaking volume and rapping and rapping and rapping. At me. Pedestrians are walking by looking at both of us like we‘re nuts. Needless to say, though, he got his point across.
He had a very clear idea of what he wanted the Mass Appeal story to be, too, and was not shy about letting me know. Throughout the five- to six-hour ride-along he would often say things like, “
When you’re writing this you should say....” Later, at his apartment in Hoboken, I chuckled noting that he had nothing on the walls except an early flat screen (
which replaced the box-TV infamously given to Sway) and a poster of himself wearing a Nolan Ryan throwback, which he’d blown up from a quarter-page photo that ran in The Source’s Roc-A-Fella cover story. This guy... I thought.
But I got over the initial shock of Kanye’s Kanye-ness as soon as he started playing sketches of what would become The College Dropout. I started to understand him and his behavior. It all made sense. This dude was attempting to buck every trend, every assumption of “
what would work,“ and quite literally change the course of popular music. And, in quick succession, popular culture. Frankly, you have to have King Kong–size balls to even consider such an ambition. And to actualize it, you have to be an unstoppable force. And unstoppable forces are, by nature, grating. They’re motherfucking unstoppable, yo!
So of course he had to sell me on his rap skills or die trying. And of course he was micromanaging the interview—every sentence could either advance his agenda or not. And of course he had to have the hero shot of himself blown up in the crib. He was visualizing himself as a star. The grating and the great were inextricably bound. And, for this, we should be grateful.
Look at the landscape of music and culture today. It all starts with The College Dropout, and West's audacious belief in his own ability to change the world.
Here‘s a conversation with young Kanye West, back before I or anyone else knew who Kanye West was going to become—except Kanye West, of course.
(CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING THE COMPLETE ARTICLE)
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