Kanye West is a legend and has been a prominent artist in hip-hop for the best part of two decades. However, he was operated underneath other artists before he came into his own. That said, he worked with various figures before he teamed up with Jay-Z as a Roc-a-Fella signee.
No I.D. was one of the most critical individuals Kanye encountered in his quest to achieve fame as a beatmaker. No I.D. continued to develop Kanye’s talents and taught him the tricks of the trade. No I.D. was West’s manager for a short period, but he couldn’t handle his temperamental nature.
Knowing the budding producer needed a home, he introduced West to Kyambo Joshua, the A&R of Roc-A-Fella and the CEO of a production house named Hip-Hop. In 1998, Joshua signed Kanye on the hip-hop roster.
In 1999, Joshua presented Jay-Z with one of Kanye’s beats. Jay-Z (real name Shawn Carter) continued to use West’s beats, and although he was initially hesitant, in 2002, he signed West as an artist. Carter originally was insistent that Kanye would only be able to sign a production deal. However, he quickly signed West as an artist when other labels became interested.
Jay-Z and Kanye had a great relationship until around 2013 when Kanye proposed to Kim Kardashian. Since that year, the two were no longer brothers like they had been. Alongside Carter, Ye made great music.
In 2011, the pair released one of the most impactful albums of the decade, their collaborative album, Watch The Throne. The body of work featured anthems such as ‘H•A•M’, ‘Otis’, which won a Grammy award for ‘Best Rap Performance’ and the Diamond-certified single ‘Niggas In Paris’.
That said, in a 2005 interview with West following his Late Orchestration album release in London, he spoke about how he and Jay partied on the flight back to the US unveiling, “We hopped on LA [Reid’s] jet we on the jet flying back to New York partying and we were watching Mean Girls. That’s how we party!”
West then proceeded to detail a discussion he had with Jay about films, continuing, “And on the plane back, we started arguing about what are the best movies. All of my best movies were like Coming To America, Meet The Parents and all of Jay’s movies were just like gangster movies. He was like, ‘Godfather 1, 2, Casino, Scarface, Goodfellas. I was just like, ‘Jay, do you like any movies about just regular people?!'”
