What Big Sean's Learned From... Kanye West, Wiz Khalifa, Kid Cudi

→ KANYE WEST

One of the things I’ve learned from Kanye is that you can’t really wait on anybody, you have to execute your plan. Nobody can see your vision like you can. The same ones shittin’ on your vision now will be the same people congratulating you when it’s all said and done. A perfect example was his whole situation [at Rocafeella at the beginning of his career] but it was my situation too.

I got signed and I didn’t know what to do. I signed to Def Jam and I thought all I needed was a single, all I needed was a song and I’m good. Put it on TV and gimme my buzz, because I got signed off of talent I didn’t get signed off of buzz. I had the whole game fucked up, but what I did was start my own movement. I realized that the songs I would put out through the Internet could at least reach a few people and it was hundreds of thousands of kids on the Internet just looking for new artists to listen to so I took advantage of that and really did my own movement through a series of mixtapes though I only put out three— Almost Famous Vol. 1, Vol.2 and Vol. 3.

I worked hard as hell and I haven’t looked back since. I’ll tell you that when I first signed to Def Jam there were no talks of an album they were telling me you’ve got to get your buzz up you have to do this and do that and now there mixtapes later they’re saying “you have to come out with your album, you’re the number one priority and it’s crazy how that shit changed and it’s all because I stuck to my guns and I didn’t wait on anybody and tried to stay as productive as I could.