Kanye West is the wealthiest man in hip-hop and is just one of two self-made billionaires in the genre. Since his emergence on the Chicago underground hip-hop scene in the late 1990s, West has gone on to work with all the greats in the business. Still, it was not easy, and in an interview, Kanye admitted he has a fair amount of regrets concerning moves that he made in his career.
Coming up under the wing of Chicago rapper and record producer No I.D., Kanye was primarily regarded as a producer, never a rapper. Having moved with his mother to Chicago when he was just a young boy West was a talented drawer but wanted to pursue music full-time.
Eager to get into the business and ferociously networking with Chicago rappers, No I.D. saw Kanye’s potential and, throughout the mid-’90s, invited him to his studio sessions so West could gain firsthand experience of the record-making process. But West wanted more and decided that Chicago was a dead end and that to reach the heights he wanted to reach, he had to relocate to the home of hip hop, New York.
West is considered one of the pioneers of contemporary hip hop, and with Ye’s combined album sales across the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand sitting at 34.8million albums, it’s fair to say he’s sold quite a lot of albums. Furthermore, West has even worked with companies such as Adidas and Louis Vuitton. So with such an illustrious career under his belt, it would be fascinating to see if the artist had any regrets.
Well, in an interview upon a return back to Chicago with B96, Kanye West once revealed that he did have one regret but stated, “In all the interviews that I’ve been doing recently, there’s so much motivation, inspiration and insight, and what they’ll do is take this one sound-byte that sounds the most awkward in a way” but admitted that sometimes his analogies might come off as ignorant, and stated that he regrets saying things that can easily be misconstrued, he stated.
“There was a statement that I thought I was giving a compliment, but if anything, it came off as ignorant when I said this comment about Jews having money and Blacks not having money. I think it was an ignorant compliment.”
You can listen to the full interview video below.
