how old was kanye when he released college dropout
He was trying different things and no one was really feeling him. I was looking for someone who was working hard. 96. It still is, 10 years after its release (February 10, 2004). Hes like, I can die right now. Im playing pool, and he comes around and he starts singing: When it all falls down. I told him to go to the end of the record and hear the clapping at the end, and he gave me that look again. Dame Dash wasnt trying to hear Kanye. In celebration of Kanye Wests The College Dropout, here are the stories of 26 contributors The Good, The Bad, The Ugly who were involved in the making of the album, and more importantly, became instrumental to Kanye Wests career. I remember Chris coming into my office, and we were laughing about Jesus Walks. He was like, Im putting 50 on this record. I was excited, because 50 was so big. I asked to sing just a line on the record. Youd get a chain from them and youd be down with them, but just because he was on Roc-A-Fella didnt mean there was a plan. Of course we were like, You got to see the video. We showed him the video and was like, Oh my god, I have to show my mom. It seemed like a week later, maybe two weeks later, she cleared the sample., Chike: Those Coodie Coladas were crack. Im going conscious with my music. In my mind, actually not even in my mind, I may have said, But youre not conscious how are you going to do that? Hes like, Nah trust me, this is going to be my direction. Feel like fivio is the 2022 cheef and Kanye's hangin onto him for the drill (sorry for this comment being 2022 damn im so sorry ) 19. After his second collection a year later received a lukewarm reception, West announced he would no longer be showing in Paris. It pulled a lot out of me that I was holding in musically. Kanye West now enjoying a resurgence on the Billboard 200 chart as his old albums seeing massive sales increases. What relatable experience would he be rapping about at that time? "I liked it a lot," she told the New York Post. Can you try this for me? he asked. Thats awesome. I didnt hear the entire thing til it hit the radio., GLC: That was originally my record. I cant believe he just told me no., Fast forward to Christmas time again, when I picked him up from the airport. Its most successful single was Bound 2, in part because of its racy music video featuring West and his then girlfriend, the reality-television star Kim Kardashian. I used to do these BBQs every Sunday, and at the BBQs John Legend, Kanye, Chike, and everyone would all be there. I used to date his girlfriends brother. 1 debuts in a row on the Billboard 200, with Eminem (10). Lyrics and Tracklist", "Kon the Louis Vuitton Don by Kanye West", "Kanye West Can't Tell Me Nothing Mixtape", Fame Kills: Starring Kanye West and Lady Gaga, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kanye_West_albums_discography&oldid=1150926432, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. But that was when the seed was planted to even get that cleared., Coodie: After we did the video, the label was having trouble getting [the sample] cleared. I knew it was a classic. I perfected it and added one more line. If all these people jocking you and if theyre really fucking with you, why you aint signed? Whats happening over there? I hear Kanye say, Man J, spit it again. I did the joint for a half hour, and the piece was only a minute long. He was always trying to prove himself, and he kept getting better and better. ', Gee Roberson: Kanye caused the tipping point of rap when he put that album out. He didnt know how to communicate to people what was in his head. I sent him what I recorded on the road. The guy really, really, really is talented. It's been 12 years since the release of Kanye West's debut album 'The College Dropout' and in that decade he had become a staple of hip-hop, which can . Kanye said, What if Im the guy? We were on our way to the studio [because] Gee had called him to tell him he was bringing over Ludas verse. The Roc-A-Fella situation, as I understood it they werent fighting for Kanye but he got a deal., Joe 3H Weinberger: I was a scout. Since then West's music. He went on to release 'The College Dropout'. American rapper and record producer Ye, better known as Kanye West, has released 10 studio albums, two collaborative studio albums, one compilation album, one demo album, two live albums, one video album and six mixtapes. But with me, knowing the history of where these lines started and to see it turn into College Dropout, I can see how bad he wanted it and you can hear it. The results were spectacular, yielding another three Grammy wins Best Rap Album again, plus Best Rap Song for "Diamonds from Sierra Leone," and Best Rap Solo Performance for "Gold Digger." On the mainstream level, he got notoriety to people outside of hip-hop crowd as they begun to see who he was. During this time West remained involved in fashion, and YEEZY Season 6 and Season 7 were released in 2018 and 2019, respectively, though neither was shown at New York Fashion Week. Im hearing this amazing music, the choir, the strings, the chords, and then Im hearing Kanyes verse and Im moved. Were mixing Workout, [and] Pat goes, Ferris favorite song. Kanye turns to me and asks, You dont like Workout Plan? I was like, Put it like this: You dont hear Workout on a classic album. I took him to take the Lauryn album. Little was known about these invite-only sessions, with the public getting glimpses via social media clips. And then, in November 2007, tragedy struck. Lyrically, West sounded paranoid and narcissistic to the point of bathos, especially on "I Am a God," which contained the immortal line "Hurry up with my damn croissants. Do you know the song Im about to write? I was like, God, you did it. Before we went to the studio that day, we were working on a song called Self-Conscious. The lyrics were so on point. Then there's Kanye, who to my knowledge has never hustled a day in his life. I made that b**** famous." I met him once then, very briefly. Theyre not supposed to. It bothered me, but I have grown to understand through the years that its about capturing the emotion that you want the listener to get., Freeway: At that time of my life I was knee-deep in living my dream. West later sought to clarify things by saying he loved Hillary Clinton too and didn't agree with everything the president said. I miss her every day, but I especially missed her that day. Kimmel gleefully read out West's tweets during his next show sparking more opprobrium from the rapper, who shared a link to a Slate article titled: "Kanye was right.". He heard something that he wanted to have his hands in, and bring my world into his world. He would give us a batch of beats on a daily basis. Jesus Walks was done, Slow Jamz was done, Breathe In, Breathe Out was done, All Falls Down was done but on a different beat, but I saw this album. The College Dropout is the story of and for the underdog, the underachiever. It was a slap in the face. Things would be made in his apartment, and itd sound amazing. It yielded four singles, including "Monster," on which West, Jay Z and Rick Ross were memorably battered into runners-up spots by a blistering guest verse from Nicki Minaj. I got him through that session. I still perform Two Words at all my shows., JB Marshall: I meet this little Spanish/black kid. Kanye already knew that he wanted Twista [on it]. I believe he succeeded by going to that extreme, being I am the supreme, emotional male who dont take no shit. He was the rapper who had a Mercedes-Benz and a backpack. I told him he had to put J. Ivy on it. I was like, Stop bullshitting. He was a comedian, so he was always joking. But Dame didnt know. Ten years after its release, The College Dropout is still popular among its readers, as it remains a story for underdogs and underachievers. One is this guy named 50 Cent, who just got dropped from Columbia and this other guy is called Kanye West. He wanted to be more of a rapper than a producer, and being an A&R at the time led to me managing him, No I.D. The following week, I was in L.A. and I sang on Spaceship. He kept going, Let me try you again, and by the time the week was over I was on five songs., Plain Pat: Spaceship was a late addition to the album. Theres a story behind all these records. I looked at it as was in a lane of its own. What experience would I say I can fuck with? [10] West's sixth studio album Yeezus was released in June 2013 and debuted at number one in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.[11]. I figured it out. I think from there the College Dropout concept took a better form because he let go of the gangsta persona and formed a good concept. That was the first creative experience Kanye and I had, around 02. He was like, Im a rapper. I was like, Really? Hed have his keyboard, sampler, and drum machine all spread out on my moms dining room table, making beats., Devo Springsteen: Were cousins, but we didnt grow up together. The Go-Getters used to open up for Abstract Mindstate. A year later, on Yeezus (2013), West continued to explore the dark corners of his psyche, at times filtering his observations through the provocative lens of racial politics, as on New Slaves. In contrast to the extravagance of his previous solo efforts, the album found him rapping over jagged minimalist arrangements evocative of house and industrial music and embellished with spare samples of soul and dancehall vocalists. The gospel-tinged Jesus Is King was finally unveiled on October 25, the same day as a 35-minute IMAX film of the same title that documented one of the artist's Sunday Service sessions. From listening to him, I ended up coming to New York, ended up touring with Talib Kweli and ended up on Spaceship., When I wrote that verse, in December 2003, that was the month in which my mom died. It wasnt hitting; he wasnt doing it right. I liberate minds with my music. I know how Im going to do it. "Baby's Coming", another Go-Getters track not on this project also surfaced in 2016. But once the album was complete, it was leaked online. He was like, J, get out here right now. I said, Ill find a way, and hung up. I sent it to him, but when I heard it, I was frustrated. Pat was like, Kanye? [Kanye] was all for it. Its sound differed radically from his previous releases, as West chose to sing (with the assistance of a vocal production tool called Auto-Tune) rather than rap his lyrics. Nobody wanted . We used to do these Akademiks mixtapes and that was for one of those. He did another version of Two Words, a musical version. We needed a hot record for Roc-A-Fella to put money behind it [College Dropout]. I finally got a meeting with the head of the company. I dont know what we thought. It was a time of 50 Cent. That was his dream. Hes one of the most important artists of our generation. Kanye West's 18 Most Career Defining Moments. We werent managing Ye at the time, but trying to help him make it in the game., Shalik Berry: I was A&R at Roc-A-Fella at the time. She didnt actually write the record, so we were able to clear the words but not her. There was a different type of bounce on it. Him and the great J. Dilla they were the ones I tried telling everybody about. The fragility of West's state of mind was called into question at the MTV Video Music Awards the following year. West continued to achieve great popular and . I hated that record. I. Kanye West: How the Rapper Grew From Dropout to Yeezus. West subsequently announced that he planned on acquiring Parler, a conservative social media platform. I went to give him a mixtape that me and Pat had done, and he was like, I already got that. "I'd leave meetings crying all the time," he recalled. I remember when I had him perform at the movie I funded for Lee Daniels (Shadowboxer), who by the way, robbed me of $2 million, but Ill talk about that on another interview But I had Kanye come to Sundance. He was just learning how to make music, but he was the most persistent person who Ive ever met. All Rights Reserved. He left college to pursue a musical career, producing tracks for Jay-Z while polishing his demo. He did little campaigning, but he released a platform that notably called for reforming the police and legal system, reducing student debt, and having prayer in schools. He had gotten the chain in Chicago., Joe 3H Weinberger: The night he got in the car accident, I was with him beforehand. It means a lot., We were ready to go. Do that again. I riffed on top of the track again, and thats when he said: Thats what I need. I think the Ludacris factor was the billing factor more than the meat and potatoes of the record itself., Plain Pat: Breathe In, Breathe Out was one of the big ones back then. I just knew him from around Chicago. Kanye Omari West was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 8, 1977. Format: CD, LP, cassette, digital download, This page was last edited on 20 April 2023, at 20:49. We worked it so it could benefit both ends. So I did it over, over, over and over again. We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right,contact us! Theyd have tripped out ideas, a combination of edgy but still standard cookie-cutter type of stuff. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. He was trying to perfect his mic voice. Kevin Liles, who was Def Jam at the time, took me to the side and said, You should know this was all you guys. But then I thought about it, and I was close to everyone I dreamed of being close to. I was like, Okay, this is weird. Hes playing his music. All ten of his studio albums have been certified at least gold in the United States. We had a version of Two Words with only the strings. And Im a bigger artist than you in my city. This was in my head. I was familiar with him as an artist, but not the name of songs hed done. It became more than music., Miri Ben-Ari: He saw me perform with Jay Z [in 2001]. "I was inaccurate with the concept of a gentleman who plays 14 instruments not respecting artistry," he said. There was more controversy in the run-up to his seventh album, The Life of Pablo. When Kanye saw me playing in the studio, he was in awe. He didnt know how to verbalize what he wanted them to do. He showed he was about the culture, but also liked real expensive shit too. One day they came by my place and Don said he had to stop by one of his producers spot. Man, you sound like one of the legends. I had just got off the phone, after having a heated conversation with my ex-girlfriend. I can see the inception of the ideas and him going back in re-tweaking it to the final product. It was backpack but it was hood. On my flight there I was practicing. When Kanye West released Graduation on September 11, 2007, it was the candy-colored, beatwise album that, famously, beat 50 Cent for a battle over release date bragging rights. Donald Trump and his followers supported Wests candidacy, believing that he could lure some voters away from the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, in what was expected to be an incredibly close election. Literally three weeks later, Dame brought him over to Roc-A-Fella., GLC: We all knew hes been recording the album. G.O.O.D Music was the alternative to that: classy guys, uplifting music, well-dressed, a lot of skill., Tony Williams: College Dropout is so musically honest. Of the 21 tracks on his very first album, 14 samples were used on 12 songs. She ended up three songs that night. I said, I want to bring you to Capitol, if you dont mind? He was like, Lets do it. We had a similar goal., Ferris Bueller: I remember dragging [Plain] Pat with me to Mos Defs birthday party at what is now Greenhouse, but it was hosted by Howie McDuffy. Thats how it became a barber shop. He knew he was going to get Jays verse. You couldnt recognize the guy for a couple of weeks.. When I met Ye, as a kid, we clicked and linked up. Before that he would wrestle ideas, try to make it all line up but it wouldnt make sense. The magic of the album was that it was everything, not just west coast or east coast. Thats how that little switch of the run came in. Not Roc-A-Fella, not Def Jam, it was you guys., Joe 3H Weinberger: Just cause Dame grabbed him I dont think he was actually signed to Island Def Jam until Through the Wire happened. Every song did something to your spirit, and the world came around it collectively you cant help but call it a classic. Omissions? I was as low level as you can be [and] I didnt have much authority. We were scrambling. Come be on my team. I was like, Man, I just met this mother fucker and he already had 18 months of my life planned out. In February 2017, the GOOD music president, Pusha T, said in an interview that West was working on a new album. In 2021 his 10th studio album, Donda, was released, featuring collaborations with such artists as JAY-Z and The Weeknd. After spending time producing for local artists, West developed a signature style, dubbed "chipmunk soul," characterized by sped-up soul samples.