Rapper Kanye West has snagged
the cover of Time Magazine in an issue that is focusing on Hip-Hop.
The interview features West detailing his career and his attempts to break
into the music business and the adversity he faced.
“I’d leave meetings crying all the time,” West told music
writer Josh Tyrangiel in this week’s cover story. “It was a strike
against me that I didn’t wear baggy jeans and jerseys and that I never
hustled, never sold drugs.”
Dame Dash agreed that West took those in the industry by surprise.
“Kanye wore a pink shirt with the collar sticking up and Gucci loafers,”
said former Roc-A-Fella CEO Damon Dash. "It was obvious we were not from
the same place or cut from the same cloth.”
Jay-Z – currently the President of Def Jam – agreed.
“We all grew up street guys who had to do whatever we had to do to get
by,” Jay-Z told the magazine “Then there’s Kanye, who to my
knowledge has never hustled a day in his life. I didn’t see how it could work.”
West’s 2004 debut album The College Dropout sold almost 3 million
copies and earned 10 Grammy nominations.
“I had to hustle in my own way,” West said. “I can’t
tell you how frustrating it was that they didn’t get that.
The issue also features a
two-age “Roots of Rap” chart detailing the history of rap starting
in the 1970’s with legendary DJ Grandmaster Flash and is on stands now.
West’s sophomore release Late Registration hits stores August 30.
