Before Kanye Was Kanye

Before Kanye West became the egotistical lyricist with the emotional stability of a 2-year-old, he was just a regular old rapper spitting rhymes at Fat Beats in New York City. DJ Eclipse, former GM of Fat Beats in New York, unearthed this footage of a 19-year-old Kanye performing at the store.

Yesterday I started converting old Hi8 video tapes to DVD and came across some interesting footage from that day. Now we had a lot of the usual suspects in the place that day such as ILL BILL, Arsonists, Lord Finesse, Adagio, Breeze Brewin, A.L. Skills, Percee P, J-Live, Mr. Live, Chino XL, Al Tariq, Black Attack, Xzibit, Shabaam Sahdeeq, Rawcotiks, Ak Skills, Rob Swift, Roc Raida, DJ Spinna and many, many more. 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.

Who could have predicted this Kanye would have gone on to become the tantrum throwing crybaby he is today.