Last Call

Yo fuck you, Kanye, first and foremost For making me do this shit. Muh'fucker Had to throw everybody out the motherfucking room 'Cause they don't fucking I'd like to propose a toast I said toast motherfucker! And I am (Here's to the Roc) And they ask me, they ask me, they ask me, I tell them (Here's to Roc-A-Fella) Raise your glasses, your glasses, your glasses to the sky and (Here's to the Roc) This is the last call for alcohol, for the (Mr. Rockefeller) So get your ass up off the wall The all around the world Digital Underground Pac The Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer of the Roc I take my chain, my 15 seconds of fame And come back next year with the whole fucking game Ain't nobody expect Kanye to end up on top They expected that College Dropout to drop and then flop Then maybe he stop savin' all the good beats for himself Roc-A-Fella's only niggas that helped My money was thinner than Sean Paul's goatee hair Now Jean Paul Gaultier cologne fill the air, here They say he bougie, he big-headed Would you please stop talking about how my dick head is Flow infectious, give me 10 seconds I'll have a buzz bigger than insects in Texas It's funny how wasn't nobody interested 'Til the night I almost killed myself in Lexus And I am (Here's to the Roc) And they ask me, they ask me, they ask me, I tell them (Here's to Roc-A-Fella) Raise your glasses, your glasses, your glasses to the sky and (Here's to the Roc) This is the last call for alcohol, for the (Mr. Rockefeller) So get your ass up off the wall Now was Kanye the most overlooked? Yes sir Now is Kanye the most overbooked? Yes sir Though the fans want the feeling of A Tribe Called Quest But all they got left is this guy called West That'll take Freeway, throw him on tracks with Mos Def Call him Kwa-li or Kwe-li, I put him on songs with Jay-Z I'm the Gap like Banana Republic and Old Navy, and oooh It come out sweeter than old Sadie Nice as Bun-B when I met him at the Source awards Girl he had with him - ass coulda won the horse awards And I was almost famous, now everybody love Kanye I'm almost Raymond Some say he arrogant. Can y'all blame him? It was straight embarrassing how y'all played him Last year shoppin my demo, I was tryin' to shine Every motherfucker told me that I couldn't rhyme Now I could let these dream killers kill my self-esteem Or use my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams I use it as my gas, so they say that I'm gassed But without it I'd be last, so I ought to laugh So I don't listen to the suits behind the desk no more You niggas wear suits cause you can't dress no more You can't say shit to Kanye West no more I rocked 20,000 people, I was just on tour, nigga I'm Kan, the Louis Vuitton Don Bought my mom a purse, now she Louis Vuitton Mom I ain't play the hand I was dealt, I changed my cards I prayed to the skies and I changed my stars I went to the malls and I balled too hard "Oh my god, is that a black card?" I turned around and replied, "Why yes But I prefer the term African American Express" Brains, power, and muscle, like Dame, Puffy, and Russell Your boy back on his hustle, you know what I've been up to Killin y'all niggas on that lyrical shit Mayonnaise-colored Benz, I push Miracle Whips And I am (Here's to the Roc) And they ask me, they ask me, they ask me, I tell them (Here's to Roc-A-Fella) Raise your glasses, your glasses, your glasses to the sky and (Here's to the Roc) This is the last call for alcohol, for the (Mr. Rockefeller) So get your ass up off the wall "Last call for alcohol, for my niggas" So this A&R over at Roc-A-Fella, named Hip Hop Picked the "Truth" beat for Beanie. And I was in the session with him. I had my demo with me. You know, like I always do. I play the songs, he's like "Who that spittin?" I'm like "It's me." He's like "Oh, well okay." Uhh, he started talkin' to me on the phone, going back and forth Just askin' me to send him beats, and I'm thinking he's trying to get into managing producers, cause he had this other kid named Just Blaze he was messin with So won't you raise your glass won't you So won't you raise your glass won't you So won't you raise your glass won't you So won't you raise your glass won't you And um, he was friends with my mentor, No ID. And No ID told him, "Look man, you wanna mess with Kanye you need to tell him that you like the way he rap" No ID: "Yo, you wanna sign him, tell him you like how he rap" I was all, I dunno if he was gassin' me or not but he's like he wanna manage me as a rapper AND a producer [Hiphop: "I'll sign you as a producer and a rapper"] I'm like oh shit. I was messin with, uh, D-Dot also. People were like this, started talking about the ghost production but that's how I got in the game. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be here. So you know, after they picked that "Truth" beat I was figuring I was gonna do some more work but shit just wasn't poppin off like that. I was stayin in Chicago, I had my own apartment, I be doin like, just beats for local acts just to try to keep the lights on, and then to go out and buy, get a Pelle Pelle off lay-away, get some Jordans or something or get a TechnoMarine, that's what we wore back then I made this one beat where I sped up this Harold Melvin sample I played it for Hip over the phone, he's like, "Oh, yo that shit is crazy Jay might want it for this compilation album he doin, called The Dynasty. And at that time, like the drums really weren't soundin right to me So I went and um, I was listening to Dre Chronic 2001 at that time.And really I just, like bit the drums off "Xxplosive" and put it like with it sped up, sampled, and now it's kind of like my whole style, when it started, when he rapped on "This Can't be Life." And that was like, really the first beat of that kind that was on The Dynasty album. I could say that was the the resurgence of the soul sound You know, I got to come in and track the beat and at the time I was still with my other management. I really wanted to roll with Hip Hop cause I, I just needed some fresh air, you know what I'm sayin cause I been there for a while. I appreciated what they did for me but, you know there's a time in every man's life where he gotta make a change. Try to move up to the next level. And that day I came and I tracked the beat and I got to meet Jay-Z and he said, "Oh you a real soulful dude." [Jay-Z: "Oh you a real soulful dude, man"] And he, uh, played the song cause he already spit his verse by the time I got to the studio. You know how he do it, one take. And he said [Jay-Z: "Check this out, tell me what you think of this, right here"] "Tell me what you think of this." And I heard it, and I was thinking like, man, I really wanted more like of the simple type Jay-Z. I ain't want like the, the more introspective, complicated rhy- or the... in my personal opinion. So he asked me, "What you think of it?" [Jay-Z: "so what you think of this?"] And I was like, "Man that shit tight," you know what I'm sayin', man what I'ma tell him? I was on the train, man, you know. So after that I went back home. And man I'm, I'm just in Chicago, I'm trying to do my thing. You know, I got groups. I got acts I'm trying to get on, and like there wasn't nothin really like poppin' off the way it should have been. One of my homies that was one of my artists, he got signed. But it was supposed to really go through my production company, but he ended up going straight with the company. So, like I'm just straight holdin' the phone, gettin' the bad news that dude was tryin' to leave my company. And I got evicted at the same time. So I went down and tracked the beats from him, I took that money, came back, packed all my shit up in a U-Haul, maybe about ten days before I had to actually get out so I ain't have to deal with the landlord cause he's a jerk. Me and my mother drove to... [Mother: "Com