[Buy
"
The College Dropout
" CD]
000 [Intro: Jay-Z (Kanye)]
001 [laughing]
002 Yo fuck you, Kanye, first and foremost
003 For making me do this shit. Muh'fucker
004 Had to throw everybody out the motherfucking room
005 'Cause they don't fucking..
006
007 (I'd like to propose a toast)
008 (I said toast motherfucker)
009
010 [Chorus: Kanye]
011 And I am
012 And they ask me, they ask me, they ask me, I tell them
013 Raise your glasses, your glasses, your glasses to the sky
014 This is the last call for alcohol, for the..
015 So get your ass up off the wall
016
017 [Verse 1]
018 The all around the world Digital Underground, Pac
019 The Rudloph the red nosed reindeer of the Roc
020 I take my chain, my 15 seconds of fame
021 And come back next year with the whole fucking game
022 Ain't nobody expect Kanye to end up on top
023 They expected that College Dropout to drop and then flop
024 Then maybe he stop savin' all the good beats for himself
025 Rocafella's only niggaz that help
026 My money was thinner than Sean Paul's goatee hair
027 Now Jean Paul Gaultier cologne fill the air, here
028 They say he bourgie, he big-headed
029 Won't you please stop talking about how my dick head is
030 Flow infectious, give me 10 seconds
031 I'll have a buzz bigger than insects in Texas
032 It's funny how wasn't nobody interested
033 'Til the night I almost killed myself in Lexus
034
035 [Chorus]
036
037 [Verse 2]
038 Now was Kanye the most overlooked? Yes sir
039 Now is Kanye the most overbooked? Tes sir
040 Though the fans want the feeling of A Tribe Called Quest
041 But all they got left is this guy called West
042 Better take Freeway, throw him on tracks with Mos Def
043 Call him Kwa-lI or Kwe-li, I put him on songs with Jay-Z
044 I'm the Gap like Banana Republic and Old Navy, and oooh
045 It come out sweeter than old Sadie
046 Nice as Bun-B when I met him at the Source awards
047 Girl he had with him - ass coulda won the horse awards
048 And I was almost famous, now everybody love Kanye
049 I'm almost reignin'
050 Some say he arrogant. Can y'all blame him?
051 It was straight embarrassing how y'all played him
052 Last year shoppin my demo, I was tryin' to shine
053 Every motherfucker told me that I couldn't rhyme
054 Now I could let these dream killers kill my self-esteem
055 Or use my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams
056 I use it as my gas, so they say that I'm gassed
057 But without it I'd be last, so I ought to laugh
058 So I don't listen to the suits behind the desk no more
059 You niggaz wear suits 'cause you can't dress no more
060 You can't say shit to Kanye West no more
061 I rocked 20,000 people, I was just on tour, nigga
062 I'm Kan, the Louis Vuitton Don
063 Bought my mom a purse, now she Louis Vuitton Mom
064 I ain't play the hand I was dealt, I changed my cards
065 I prayed to the skies and I changed my stars
066 I went to the malls and I balled too hard
067 'Oh my god, is that a black card?'
068 I turned around and replied, why yes but I prefer the term
069 African American Express
070 Brains, power, and muscle, like Dame, Puffy, and Russell
071 Your boy back on his hustle, you know what I've been up to
072 Killin y'all niggaz on that lyrical shit
073 Mayonnaise colored Benz, I push Miracle Whips
074
075 [Chorus]
076 "... last call for alcohol, for my niggaz"
077
078 [Outro]
079 So this A&R over at Rocafella, named Hiphop
080 picked the Truth beat for Beanie. And I was in the session with him
081 I had my demo with me. You know, like I always do
082 I play the songs, he's like "Who that spittin?"
083 I'm like "It's me." He's like "Oh, well okay."
084 Uhh, he started talkin to me on the phone
085 going back and forth, just askin me to send him beats
086 And I'm thinking he's trying to get into managing producers
087 cause he had this other kid named Just Blaze he was messin with
088 And um, he was friends with my mentor, No ID
089 And No ID told him, "look man, you wanna mess with Kanye
090 you need to tell him that you like the way he rap"
091 [No ID:] "Yo, you wanna sign him, tell him you like how he rap"
092 I was all, I dunno if he was gassin' me or not
093 but he's like he wanna manage me as a rapper AND a producer
094 [Hiphop:] "I'll sign you as a producer and a rapper",
095 I'm like oh shit
096 I was messin with, uh, D-Dot also
097 People were like this, started talking about the Ghost production
098 But that's how I got in the game. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be here
099 So you know. After they picked that Truth beat
100 I was figuring I was gonna do some more work
101 But shit just went poppin off like that. I was stayin in Chicago
102 I had my own apartment. I be doin' like, just beats for local acts
103 just to try to keep the lights on, and then to go out and buy
104 get a Pelle Pelle off lay-away, get some Jordans or something
105 or get a TechnoMarine, that's what we wore back then
106 I made this one beat where I sped up this Hal Melville sample
107 I played it for Hip over the phone, he's like "oh, yo that shit is crazy
108 Jay might want it for this compilation album he doin, called The Dynasty."
109 And at that time, like the drums really weren't soundin' right to me
110 so I went and um, I was listening to Dre Chronic 2001 at that time
111 and really I just, like picked the drums off Xxplosive and put it like
112 with it sped up, sampled, and now it's kind of like my whole style
113 when it started, when he rapped on 'This Can't be Life.'
114 And that was like, really the first beat of that kind that was on the Dynasty album
115 I could say that was the, the resurgence of this whole sound
116 You know, I got to come in and track the beat, and at the time
117 I was still with my other management. I really wanted to roll with
118 Hiphop. 'Cause I, I just needed some fresh air, you know what I'm
119 sayin, 'cause I been there for a while, I appreciated what they did
120 for me, but, you know there's a time in every man's life where he
121 gotta make a change, try to move up to the next level. And that day I
122 came and I tracked the beat and I got to meet Jay-Z and he said, "oh
123 you a real soulful dude" [Jay-Z: "you a real soulful dude"]. And he
124 uh, played the song 'cause he already spit his verse by the time I got
125 to the studio, you know how he do it, one take. And he said
126 [Jay-Z:] "check this out, tell me what you think of this, right here"
127 "tell me what you think of this." And I heard it, and I was thinking
128 like, man, I really wanted more like of the simple type Jay-Z, I ain't
129 want like the, the more introspective, complicated rhy- or the, in my
130 personal opinion. So he asked me, "what you think of it?"
131 [Jay-Z:] "so what you thinkin?"
132 And I was like, "man that shit tite,"
133 you know what I'm sayin', man what I'ma tell him? I was on the train
134 man, you know. So after that I went back home. And man I'm, I'm just
135 in Chicago, I'm trying to do my thing. You know, I got groups. I got
136 acts I'm trying to get on, and like there wasn't nothin really like
137 poppin' off the way it should have been. One of my homeys that was one
138 of my artists, he got signed. But it was supposed to really go through
139 my production company, but he ended up going straight with the
140 company. So, like I'm just straight holdin' the phone, gettin' the bad
141 news that dude was tryin' to leave my company. And I got evicted at
142 the same time. So I went down and tracked the beats from him, I took
143 that money, came back, packed all my shit up in a U-Haul, maybe about
144 ten days before I had to actually get out. So I ain't have to deal
145 with the landlord 'cause he's a jerk. Me and my mother drove to
146 [Mother:] "Come on, let's just go"
147 Newark, New Jersey. I hadn't even seen my apartment.
148 I remember I pulled up
149 [Mother:] "Kanye, baby, we're here",
150 I unpacked all my shit. You know, we went to Ikea, I bought a
151 bed, I put the bed together myself. I loaded up all my equipment, and
152 the first beat I made was, uh, 'Heart of the City.'
153 And Beans was still working on his album at that time, so I came up
154 there to Baseline, it was Beans' birthday, matter of fact, and I
155 played like seven beats. And, you know I could see he's in the zone
156 he already had the beats that he wanted, I did nothing like already at
157 that time. But then Jay walked in. I remember he had a GuccI bucket
158 hat on. I remember it like, like it was yesterday. And Hiphop said
159 "yo play that one beat for him." And I played 'Heart of the City.' And
160 really I made 'Heart of the City,' I really wanted to give that beat to DMX.
161 [Hiphop:] "No I think Jay gon' like this one right here".
162 And I played another beat, and I played another beat. And I remember that
163 GuccI bucket, he took it and like put it over his face and made one of
164 them faces like 'OOOOOOOOOOH.' Two days later I'm in Baseline and I seen
165 Dame. Dame didn't know who I was and I was like "yo what's up I'm Kanye."
166 [Dame:] "Yo, you that kid, Kanye?"
167 "You that kid that gave all them beats to Jay?
168 Yo, this nigga got classics"
169 [Dame:] "Jay got classics, G."
170 You know I ain't talkin shit.
171 I'm like "oh shit." And all this time I'm starstruck, man. I'm
172 still thinking 'bout, you know I'm picturing these niggaz on the show
173 The Streets is Watching, I'm lookin, these were superstars in my
174 eyes. And they still are, you know. So, Jay came in and he spit all
175 these songs like in one day, and in two days... I gotta bring up one
176 thing, you know, come back to the story, the day I did the 'Can't be
177 Life' beat on track, I remember Lenny S, he had some Louis Vuitton
178 sneakers on, he think he fly. And Hiphop was there, I think Tata, John
179 Minnelli, a bunch of people. I didn't know all these people at the
180 time they was in the room, and I said, "yo Jay I could rap." And I
181 spit this rap that said, uh "I'm killin y'all niggaz on that lyrical
182 shit. Mayonnaise colored Benz, I push miracle whips." And I saw his
183 eyes light up when I said that line. But you know the West, the rap
184 was like real wack and shit, so that's all the response.
185 He said "man that was tite."
186 [Jay-Z:] "That, that was cool. That was hot."
187 That was it. You know, I ain't get no deal then, hehe.
188 Okay, fast forward.
189 So, Blueprint, H to the Izzo, my first hit single. And I just
190 took that proudly, built relationships with people. My relationship
191 with KwelI I think was one of the best ones to ever happen to my
192 career as a rapper. Because, you know, of course later he allowed me
193 to go on tour with him. Man, I appre-- I love him for that. And at
194 this time, you know I didn't have a deal, I had songs, and I had
195 relationships with all these A&R's, and they wanted beats from me, so
196 they'd call me up, I'd play them some beats. "Gimme a beat that sound
197 like Jay-Z." You know, they dick riders. Whatever. So I'll play them
198 these post-Blueprint beats or whatever and then I'll play my shit. I'll
199 be like, "yo but I rap too." Hey, I guess they was lookin' at me crazy
200 'cause you know, 'cause I ain't have a jersey on or whatever
201 Everybody out there listen here. I played them 'Jesus Walks' and they
202 didn't sign me. You know what happened, it was some A&R's that fucked
203 with me though, but then like the heads, it'd be somebody at the
204 company that'll say "naw." Like, Dave LottI fucked with me, my
205 nigga Mel brought me to a bunch of labels. Jessica Rivera, man
206 [Jessica:] "Man, you niggaz is stupid if y'all don't sign Kanye, for real."
207 I'm not gonna say nothin to mess my promotion up
208 "Y'all niggaz is stupid". Let's just say I didn't get my deal.
209 The nigga that was behind me, I mean,
210 he wasn't even a nigga, you know?
211 The person who actually kicked everything off was Joe 3H from Capitol
212 Records. He wanted to sign me really bad.
213 [Joe:] "We gonna change the game, buddy."
214 Dame was like, "yo you got a deal with Capitol,
215 okay man, just make sure it's not wack."
216 [Dame:] "you gotta make sure it's not wack."
217 Then one day I just went ahead and played it, I wanted to
218 play some songs, 'cause you know Cam was in the room, Young Guru, and
219 Dame was in the room. So I played... actually it's a song that you'll
220 never hear, but maybe I might use it. So, it's called 'Wow.'
221 "I go to Jacob with 25 thou, you go with 25 hundred, wow
222 I got eleven plaques on my walls right now
223 You got your first gold single, damn, nigga, wow."
224 Like the chorus went. Don't bite that chorus, I might still use it. So
225 I play that song for him, and he's like "oh shit"
226 [Dame:] "Oh shit it's not even wack."
227 "I ain't gonna front, it's kinda hot."
228 [Dame:] "it's actually kinda hot."
229 Like they still weren't looking at me
230 like a rapper. And I'm sure Dame figured, 'like man. If he do a whole
231 album, if his raps is wack at least we can throw Cam on every song and
232 save the album, you know. So uh Dame took me into the office, and he's
233 like "yo man, we, we on a brick, we on a brick"
234 [Dame:] "you don't wanna catch a brick"
235 You gotta be under an umbrella, you'll get rained on.
236 I told Hiphop and Hiphop was all, "oh, word?" Actually, even with
237 that I was still about to take the deal with Capitol 'cause it was
238 already on the table and 'cause of my relationship with 3H. That, you
239 know, 'cause I told him I was gonna do it, and I'm a man of my word, I
240 was gonna roll with what I said I was gonna do. Then, you know, I'm
241 not gonna name no names, but people told me, "oh he's just a producer
242 rapper" and told 3H that told the heads of the Capitol, and right--
243 the day I'm talking about, I planned out everything I was gonna do
244 man, I had picked out clothes, I already started booking studio
245 sessions, I started arranging my album, thinking of marketing schemes
246 man I was ready to go. And they had Mel call me, they said
247 "yo... Capitol pulled on the deal"
248 [Mel:] "Yo, Capitol pulled out on the deal."
249 And, you know I told them that Rocafella was interested
250 and I don't know if they thought that was just something I was saying
251 to gas them up to try to push the price up or whatever. I went up... I
252 called G, I said, "man, you think we could still get that deal with Rocafella?"Kanye West Lyrics Index
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