Kanye West – Live In Amsterdam (2004)
Posted in Artists, Live Performances, Videos on July 4th, 2010 by HyphenSeeing this clip of Kanye and John Legend Stephens performing in Amsterdam around the release of The College Dropout reminds me of my 2nd semester of senior year down in Cali. The homey Tunji and I had been steadily following ‘Ye’s burgeoning rap career, ever since we heard the first couple of freestyles that he put on the net, and we were lucky enough to see him perform 2 shows in LA around the NBA All-Star Weekend in ’04 (right around my birthday too). Shout to DJ Off Beat, aka Don C, for hooking it up. Kanye even filmed the “All Falls Down” video at our local airport in Ontario, CA that week too…if only we had known Stacey Dash was in our neighborhood…
Anyway, I’ll never forget chopping it up with ‘Ye in the back of House Of Blues Anaheim and him being so happy that random dudes like Tunj and I knew all his freestyles. He was so geeked that he started rhyming new verses a capella to a couple of college kids, just to prove that the best was yet to come. Hanging out with one of my best friends while Kanye excitedly rapped what would become a verse on “Gold Digger” (“18 YEARS…18 YEARS!”) is one of my favorite music memories ever.
The College Dropout changed my life, real talk.