What’s the worst that could happen?’ So it was kinda treated that way up until they started hearing it. “So he was like, ‘Cool, we’ve got a lot of artists on Roc-A-Fella. “Dame thought it was going to be a compilation,” Hip Hop says laughing. He simply said: ‘I’ma tell my story and speak for that kid.’ At that point everything clicked.”Īlmost ending up a compilation album, Roc-A-Fella treated College Dropout as such until they started hearing the tracks Kanye was cooking up. He was like, ‘I get it now, I know what I can do I can just be me.’ And then the very next day he came to me with the College Dropout concept. As soon as we left the movie theatre I remember him saying, ‘I got it! I can just be myself.’ After watching the movie that’s what came to him. “I remember him telling me about the whole concept when it came to him, it was after we went to see the Tupac: Resurrection movie. “Once he understood what it was going to be you were just along for the ride,” remembers Hip Hop. While Kanye had a big team around him that included Rhymefest, Consequence, John Legend, GLC, Anthony Kilhoffer, Don C, John Monopoly and of course Gee and Hip Hop, once the concept for the album was birthed Kanye went into autopilot and never once steered away from his original idea. Released February 10th 2004, College Dropout sold 441,000 copies stateside in its first week, spawned the hits ‘Through the Wire’, ‘Slow Jamz’, ‘Jesus Walks’ and ‘All Falls Down’, landed at number two on the Billboard 200 chart, and in 2005 took home the Grammy for Best Rap Album. I knew that if people could just get over him being a producer and listen to the album for the music and not worry about it being as hard or as street then we would be good.” “But I knew once we got over that wall it could be incredible. “I knew we had to get over a wall,” admits Hip Hop. With Roc-A-Fella on board all that was left to do was sell Kanye and his nerdy blue-collar persona to the consumer, this during a time when 50 Cent and G-Unit were dominating the airwaves with a brand of gangsta rap that was selling in the millions – 50’s major label debut Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ sold six million copies in America alone by the end of 2003. But of course once they heard it they gave him anything he wanted.” “There was no big build up to get the deal done for College Dropout, the deal wasn’t even $300,000 for the whole thing, and that’s the advance and everything.
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