At one point, Kanye West was just a rap star and wasn’t married to the face of reality television. Even before that, he was an aspiring young rapper performing in record shops. A video from that time in West’s life has surfaced, providing a glimpse at the star he would become.
West did whatever he could do in his late teens to get attention and performing at Fat Beats stores in Chicago and New York seemed to be the way to do it. According to Complex, the video that surfaced this week shows West performing at the 1996 opening of Fat Beats’ 6th Avenue store, which closed in 2010.
“Rhymes for low fare/Flying out of O'Hare/While these no-name a** ni**as wanna go there,” he raps. There’s also a mention about time travel and, as People points out, there’s even a dig at Alanis Morissette.
DJ Eclipse, the store’s general manager, told Complex that he was recently going through some old video of that August 1996 day and found performances many other artists. “But what took me by surprise was the appearance of this 19-year-old kid who at that time nobody knew. At least in NYC,” he said.
The video does feature some strong language. It was recorded eight years before The College Dropout helped West hit the big time.
image courtesy of INFphoto.com