Apparently, Kanye keeps on saying crazy stuff. This post is not about that stuff, and it isn’t condoning anything he said. It also doesn’t condone his terrible shoes. I don’t watch the news but I sure as hell watch Netflix, and this post covers something Kanye worked through that many people can learn from. How he broke away from being “Kanye the Producer” to become one of the best rap artists of all time. And with that warning out of the way, we’ll move along to the post.
“Make sure I get my beats, boy!”
That’s all it took for Kanye to know nothing had changed.
He crashed the Roc-A-Fella offices, played All Falls Down for anyone who would listen, and what did he hear on the way out?
“Make sure I get my beats, boy.”
It felt like a slap in the face for the budding star, but that’s who he was at the time.
Kanye the Producer.
Every time he sold a beat, he got paid, and he got props. But he also got a step farther away from his goal.
Why did everyone at Roc-A-Fella ignore Kanye’s lyrics? Why did they only want him as a producer?
Because that’s what was best for them.
Even after he showed his skills people called Kanye the best “rapper-producer,” which might sound nice to you and me but to him it was like being called the “best kid rapper,” and nobody is putting Lil’ Bow Wow in the Hall of Fame.
It can be frustrating, confusing, when people don’t see you the same way you see yourself.
How did Kanye finally get them to open their eyes?
A spoonful of sugar. Something that would nudge them in his direction just a bit. A taste of familiarity. For Kanye, that meant leveraging his producer credits on The Blueprint and asking Jay-Z for a verse on The Blueprint 2.
After Kanye laid down his verse on The Bounce, Jay said, “Closed mouths don’t get fed. You wouldn’t have said nothing, you wouldn’t have been on that.”
It was Kanye’s first appearance as a rapper on a Roc-A-Fella release. A milestone for sure. Kanye was gaining notoriety, the bones of his legendary College Dropout album were complete, and Roc-A-Fella still sent him off to LA on another production assignment.
They signed him, then sidelined him. Put him on the shelf. Why?
He was still Kanye the Producer. But not for long.
Enough about Kanye for now.
Let’s talk about me. And maybe you.
My first Sales Director had the most tenured team in the company. He shielded us from executive management, took bullets for us after a bad quarter, and gave us a lot of autonomy. Those traits were appreciated.
Many of us had worked under him for over a decade. We made good money, had cars and houses, but something about it was strange. Nobody ever got promoted, nobody ever changed roles, and nobody made contributions to anything, except their own run line. Maybe that seems like a typical “coin operated” sales team but this was different. We’d been insulated. Nothing got in, and nothing was getting out.
For all of the support he gave us, he also told us we “lacked the charisma for leadership” and “lacked the discipline for management.” What was the truth? The truth was that we produced and we didn’t need training. We made his life a lot easier right where we were. Once a new VP came on the scene and started asking questions, many of us were immediately promoted, pushed into new roles. We were moved into higher leverage positions where we could grow and make a larger impact.
My parents didn’t pay much attention, but maybe your parents really wanted you to be a doctor. It’s a noble profession but more likely they want to tell their friends. They want to guarantee you a steady wage, off of their payroll, and guarantee themselves a little neighborhood status. They put you on that path, bury you in work, downplay other options, and fit you with blinders that shield the alternatives.
Sounds like what Roc-A-Fella did to Kanye.
It’s confusing when the work you put everything into gets ignored by the ones you love and respect. The mentors and even the peers you thought had your best in mind. They talk you out of the person you want to be, in exchange for the person they think you should be.
It’s confusing for them too. They are squinting, but they just can’t see it. The person you’ve become.
It’s hard for them to get past their first impressions of you, either as a rapper, producer, or just a young kid. As a leader, a mentor, or just another sales guy.
How do they keep us put? They keep us busy with other things, so busy we don’t have time for dreams. Maybe they offer money and prestige, gold stars for the good work we are doing. And sometimes they tell us we can’t, that we don’t have it, that the risk is too high. The tallest poppy get’s cut down, so why even try?
We need to be vigilant, keep our head up, eyes on the horizon, and keep moving forward.
Make something great. Something impossible to ignore.
Drip by drip, and then all at once.
Kanye had already released Through The Wire but the single was not enough to break through.
Drip.
Mos Def was a fan. So was Talib Kweli. Kanye kept moving. He went and got Jamie Foxx for Slow Jamz. Ludacris on Breath in Breath Out. He was creating great work and he was building strong partnerships. Advocates. Are they going to shelf an album full of stars just because it’s Kanye and we want them beats?
Drip, drip.
The momentum was building, and Kanye knew it.
Dave Chappelle tells a story about the moment he knew Kanye would be a star. They were previewing a few sketches they had in the can and Kanye got a call. It’s unclear who was on the other line and what they were offering, but the answer was a resounding “no.”
“No I can’t. I’m at the edit, the Dave Chappelle show, watching sketches nobody has seen before. Because my life is dope, and I do dope shit.”
Then he hung up.
Kanye’s album had not been released yet, but he was no longer Kanye the Producer.
And four months later he made history.
