I met Kanye West on Halloween of 2003 back when I was recording at Sony Studios.  I was walking to the elevator on my way to a recording session with my headphones blasting the Kanye West produced John Legend song “Live it Up” on my DISCMAN, when he opened the door to one of the first floor rooms to let someone in.  He looked at me and said “What up” and I said “Yo, I’m listening to your shit right now.  That John Legend shit.”  He said, “Oh word, let me hear that.”  He took the headphones from me and started bopping along, and said “Yeah, this is my shit.”  Keep in mind this is before Kanye’s first album dropped and way before anyone knew who John Legend was, but I was already a big fan of both of them from hearing them on mixtapes.

Kanye invited me in to the studio (which was way bigger and nicer than the closet space I was using downstairs), and introduced me to all his boys.  He told me he wanted to hear me spit after I told him I was there for a recording session.  His whole crew was mad cool, watching the “Thru The Wire” video (see above) on their phones (this is right when video phones first started popping up), cracking jokes with me while Kanye played Connect Four.  I chilled for a few minutes, soaked it in, and then kept it moving to go downstairs for my session (I was focused).  I went to say peace to Kanye, and he said “Yo, I thought you were gonna spit something for me”, so I spit the first sixteen bars that came to my head (which ended up being the third verse of a song I never released, “Marinate On That“).  He gave me my props, I dapped him up, and went on my way.  That was that.  Crazy.  Check a vintage video of Kanye in the studio making a beat below…

Five years later, Kanye West is the biggest thing in music.  And his show is absolutely incredible, weaving all his hits into the story of him crashing his spaceship on an unkown planet and trying to get home.  Other than his talking spaceship, Jane, and a closing cameo on “Touch the Sky” by opening act Lupe Fiasco (see pic below), Kanye is solo dolo on stage the whole show with no token hip-hop hypeman helping him with his lyrics, and manages quite easily to keep the crowd completely captivated.  The stage design is bananas, along with all the lighting and special effects (hologram babes and some huge dinosaur that eats Yeezy).  For real, he LETS HIS SOUL BLEED ON THE STAGE.  So much energy, so much emotion, in every word.  And for a guy with three albums, boy does he have a lot of STADIUM STATUS BANGERS in his arsenal.  

Kanye in his element…

Chi-Town’s Finest.  I took these pics myself, don’t sleep on my photography skills (they’re ok i’m just talking shit)…Below is opening act N.E.R.D. wilin’ out on stage to “Spaz” with the help of guest spazzers Busta Rhymes and Diggy from Run’s House.  Dudes put on a good show, they had the crowd hyped.  And Pharrell might be the coolest guy on the planet, p-p-pause.  No Rihanna at our show, my girl was disappointed…

All in all, I was impressed by the whole performance, but more importantly, I was fully entertained and truly felt like I was a part of history.  Simply put, KANYE IS NICE.  He is the voice of my generation (he’s almost exactly my same age), and an inspirational artist that I have always looked up to.  HE REPRESENTS ME and the music I grew up on.  And to think I chilled with him right before he blew up worldwide.  I probably should have scratched my session that night and stayed with Kanye, rather than go downstairs to work with a record label that folded six months later.  Oh well, like Jay-Z said, “gotta learn to live with regrets”.

Speaking of Hov, Kanye pulled him out on stage Wednesday night to perform a new song (produced by Kanye himself) called “Jockin’ Jay-Z”, supposedly off the upcoming BLUEPRINT 3.  I knew he was gonna bring Jay out the night I wasn’t there, I had a feeling.  It’s all good though, peep the video, it’s official.  This is as classic a hip-hop moment as they come…

Want another classic Jay-Z hip-hop moment from this week?  Check this bonus video of Nas bringing Jigga out at Jones Beach this past Sunday during Rock The Bells to perform “Success” and “Black Republicans”…

Stay up to date with Kanye West on his personal blog, he’s very active on it, and he always has sick content, dealing alot with music, design, models, artists, technology, etc….Check the link below…