With 21 Grammy Awards under his belt, one might think it was easy for Kanye West to break through as a rapper, but many in the music industry tried to pigeonhole him into being a producer. Speaking on The Coda Collection with Andrew Barber, Lupe Fiasco recalled a time Arista Records executive L.A. Reid dissed Kanye’s rhyming ability.
“We brought Ye into Arista to showcase for L.A. Reid before Roc-A-Fella. Stack Bundles was sitting there,” he said. “Imagine it’s me, Stack Bundles, Kanye, and L.A. Reid in the office.”
Lupe continued to detail a moment Reid will forever regret. “When [Kanye] stopped [rapping], L.A. was like, ‘Yo you should stick to making music, stick to making beats,'” he continued. So that’s why I always honor Ye, no matter how crazy he goes. I’ve seen that man struggle.”
Lupe actually met a neophyte Kanye back in 2000 when he produced “The Truth” for Beanie Sigel and they wound up working together on tracks in the subsequent years while Yeezy bounced his rap ideas off of Lupe.
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Kanye then signed with Roc-A-Fella Records and broke through with the release of his debut The College Dropout in 2004 and nothing was the same from there on out. The two Chicago natives’ largest collab to date came in 2005 with Late Registration standout “Touch The Sky.”
Listen to the segment below.
I agree with that statement. Until yeezus after that he should retire all together
well…
He should have listend to LA Reid… everything after Graduation is ass, not to mention Kanye is a psycho homo
well his vocals rap or what ever he brings something different. i think the problem is not his flow or anything like that it is just he has been in so much controversy. the taylor swift/beyonce thing. keeping up with the kardashians. his ex-wife kim kardashian with that enormous bottom. we were supposed to be like, damn, i would hit that from the back. he threw a wobbly on his campaign trail to be potus. associating himself with donald trump. i think he should be creating beats too but also continue rapping. he has to prove himself again and leave all of that shit behind him absolutely as if it never happened.
they wound up working together on tracks in the subsequent years while Yeezy bounced his rap ideas off of Lupe.
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Don’t you mean while Lupe ghostwrote for him?
Good advice.