Big Sean once named his number-one album of all time
Former G.O.O.D. Music artist Big Sean is undeniably one of the most prominent contemporary rap artists from Detroit. Raised by his mother, a school teacher, and his grandmother, the rapper caught the eye of Kanye West after Big Sean was brave enough to approach him at a radio station.
Big Sean met West in 2005 at the headquarters of Detroit’s WDKL 102.7 radio station. Here, he rapped for the super producer and left his demo with Kanye. Exactly two years later, West signed Big Sean to G.O.O.D. Music, and over the years, the two have worked together extensively, leading to Big Sean becoming a household name.
As one of only a handful of contemporary hip-hop artists from Detroit, Sean has made a big impact, and his discography boasts an eight-time platinum album, Dark Sky Paradise — just one of many chart-topping projects the emcee has released.
That said, although Big Sean’s debut album wasn’t as successful as his third, the 2011 project still managed to debut at number three on the Billboard 200, and this garnered a lot of attention from critics and hip-hop fans alike.
As such. shortly after its release, the Detroit legend was invited to sit down with Complex magazine to discuss some of his inspirations so fans could find out more about the kind of music the Hall of Fame lyricist listened to growing up in Michigan.
While speaking to the publication, Big Sean mentioned some of the hip-hop greats, including Dr Dre, Lauryn Hill, Snoop Dogg and Nas. However, the ‘Guap’ creator didn’t just listen to rap music as a youngster, and during the conversation, as he named his two favourite projects of all time, he made it blatantly obvious who his favourite musician was.
As he listed his most cherished bodies of work, Sean’s penultimate pick was saved for the 1979 Michael Jackson album, Off The Wall, which boasts the iconic ‘Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough’. Professing his love for it, Sean told Complex, “Off The Wall is classic. It’s really just the biggest thing I feel like in music, period. “
He added, “I remember thinking I was Michael Jackson, moonwalking across my grandmother’s hallway. [I can’t moonwalk anymore], but I try though. It doesn’t work. It seems like when I was younger I could dance like him real good, but now I just can’t at all.”
However, he reserved his number one spot for another Michael Jackson project, 1982’s Thriller, which, to this day, remains the highest-selling album of all time. Recalling the massive impact it had on him as an artist, Sean remembered, “Growing up, I just wanted to be Michael Jackson. From the shoes to the dancing. I remember dancing in the mirror, I have so many happy memories to that. He was just the greatest.”
The Detroit emcee concluded, “You gotta just give it up as far as his influence on everything. There’s no song on there that I don’t like. Even though it came out way before I was born, that’s one of those albums. When an album is forever and always the soundtrack to whatever you got going on no matter how old it is, that’s the test of a real good album.”