In 2005 he hired me to co-author an autobiography, 50x50, with him. Dre, and then in Manhattan after that for two different VIBE covers. In the subsequent years I interviewed him again extensively-nine months later at his grandparent’s house in Jamaica, Queens (I even phoned that residence days after he was shot nine times, his grandmother telling me, “Curtis is not taking any calls, but wants everyone to know he’s fine.”), a couple years afterwards on the set of the video shoot for “In Da Club” with Eminem and Dr. He spoke of both businesses with linear clarity-never beating around the bush-and making little distinction between the two. And I was shocked and engrossed by the details he matter-of-factly shared about the criminal enterprise he had forsaken in his pursuit of rap. We talked on the fire escape and I, only 20 years old, was impressed by this 24-year-old’s understanding of the music industry, which far exceeded mine at the time. He’d come to our Gramercy Park office with Chaz-name dropped disparagingly, years later, on “Many Men”-wearing an oversized Black Hand Entertainment T-shirt, and played us “How to Rob.” He characterized the song as his last ditch effort at getting taken off the shelf at Sony. I wrote the first magazine profile on 50 Cent for BLAZE back in April of 1999. This sales battle-a metric in which he considered himself the superlative warrior-had yielded him the first L he’d held in a really long time. I never asked 50 Cent where he was that night, but I’m pretty sure wherever that was the tone was more somber. I was feeling very regal myself, having appeared to have just delivered the biggest rapper in the world, on his biggest day, and gone from pretty much ruining the event-embarrassing my ex and myself-to getting it written up in Page Six. Kind of like when Eminem dropped 8 Mile, Graduation was the moment that Kanye transitioned from “successful other” to legit king status.
GANGSTA RAP MADE ME DO IT RELEASE DATE REGISTRATION
Both of his previous albums had sold remarkably well in their first week ( College Dropout topping 400K and Late Registration a whopping 860K), but something was different this time around. Roxy Cottontail’s DJ set turned into a Kanye medley, and the man, loose off the Goose, happily pantomimed his hits for the audience. Then, as the clock struck midnight ushering in the day of Kanye’s album release, the party exploded. I intro’d him to my ex, explaining that MISSBEHAVE was her thing, and watched her smile as they nerded out about fashion. A couple minutes later ’ Ye, Pat, Don C, his publicist Gabe T, and the entire crew slid through the Manhattan nightclub BAPE’d out. In any case, I explained I was at the MB thing, and confirmed that, yes, there were a lot of hot hipster women there. Maybe he just hit me ’cause my number was in his “recent calls.” Who knows. In fact, at that point, we had barely ever talked on the phone, but I think I’d called him to congratulate him earlier in the day. We’d just collaborated on his third COMPLEX cover, an issue he’d guest-edited, but we’d never, like, hung out. I’d known Kanye about five years and written about him a half dozen times at that point-some of which he liked, and some of which he didn’t. To be clear, this was not a normal happening. So needless to say when that exchange was interrupted by my cell-with Kanye West and Plain Pat on the other end, asking where the party was at-things started to look up for the kid. Eight years later I don’t recall exactly what I said when I arrived, but I definitely do recall some yelling followed by some tears. I was at a party thrown in honor of my recently ex’d-girlfriend launching her new magazine, MISSBEHAVE, and was trying my best to do the cordial yeah-I’m-so-happy-for-you-and-totally-over-us thing. TBH, though, it wasn’t Kanye’s improbable sales victory that I was celebrating. 10, 2007, and HITS Daily Double was projecting based off pre-orders that West would actually outsell the incumbent heartless monster of SoundScan, 50 Cent. Where were you the day Kanye West killed gangsta rap? Me? I was super duper drunk, propped up on a banquette at Room Service watching Kanye West, standing on a table in front of me, rap along to “Good Life.” Because, you know, life was good.
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