Kanye West tours are known to reel in thousands of fans each night, but the rapper didn’t always command stages during his early days as easily as he does now. 9th Wonder, who has previously worked with West, took to Twitter to share a story about Kanye’s come-up in the industry and revealed that the hitmaker once got booed offstage.
9th Wonder reminisced after responding to a tweet that mentioned how West’s production fees rose from $500 to $30,000 in just one year. 9th confirmed the tweet and recalled his first meeting with the “Famous” rapper while attending a music conference in 2003, and the pair eventually hit the studio together.
“Phonte spotted him standing in the hotel lobby of the Durham Marriott, so we walked over to talk to him,” he wrote on Twitter. “We introduced ourselves….his reply was ‘yeah man I know who y’all are man, I wanna do a song with y’all…'” Following their initial meet, 9th produced “I See Now” for rapper Consequence and West, who praised 9th for his production skills.
Later in his tweets, 9th reminisced about Kanye’s Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Awards performance, where he performed his breakout hit “Through the Wire” but the crowd wasn’t as receptive as West would’ve hoped. “Order of show… Kanye went on 3rd, LB went on 4th…..Ye performed ONE song, ‘Through The Wire’…..to crickets….no one clapped, no one cheered…..even the dude running the music and video cut Ye’s backdrop short….Ye lost it.”
He also mentioned a performance during West’s College Dropout Tour where John Legend took the stage and was met with boos as well. “That same spring, Ye came to LDOC (Last Day of Class) at @DukeU. His opening act was a singer/songwriter who played piano. During his performance, the singer/songwriter asked could he perform one more song called ‘Ordinary People,’ people yelled ‘NO! We want Kanye.'”
9th wrapped up his story by encouraging artists to stay the course and keep creating. “No matter what…Artists…keep making music…people aren’t checking for it because they don’t know you, not because they took the time to listen. In time…..the [–] [–] [–] [–] [–] [–] [–] [–] [–] [–] [–] [–] will come.”
Read 9th Wonder’s tweets below:
I first met Kanye West in the Summer of 2003, at SMES Music Conference in Durham, NC….
— 9th Wonder (@9thwonder) December 31, 2017
Phonte spotted him standing in the hotel lobby of the Durham Marriott, so we walked over to talk to him. We introduced ourselves….his reply was “yeah man I know who y’all are man, I wanna do a song with y’all…”.
— 9th Wonder (@9thwonder) December 31, 2017
So we met up with Kanye in the studio and recorded what some of y’all know as “I See Know”, along with the good brother Consequence. Kanye then said on the song….”I can’t front nigga u got some hot beats….”
— 9th Wonder (@9thwonder) December 31, 2017
After we cut the song….Kanye played us a few songs from the album that at the time….several labels had turned down…including his own…the songs he played us was “Work Out Plan”, “Jesus Walks”, “SpaceShips”, and a song he produced for Dilated Peoples.
— 9th Wonder (@9thwonder) December 31, 2017
Later on that summer, LB got a gig to go perform in the Billboard R&B and Hip-Hop Awards, hosted by Russ Parr and a new actor on the come up at the time…. @idriselba…Kanye was there…
— 9th Wonder (@9thwonder) December 31, 2017
Order of show…Kanye went on 3rd, LB went on 4th…..Ye performed ONE song, “Through The Wire”…..to crickets….no one clapped, no one cheered…..even the dude running the music and video cut Ye’s backdrop short….Ye lost it.
— 9th Wonder (@9thwonder) December 31, 2017
That same spring, Ye came to LDOC (Last Day of Class) at @DukeU. His opening act was a singer/songwriter who played piano. During his performance, the singer/songwriter asked could he perform one more song called “Ordinary People”, people yelled “NO! We want Kanye”.
— 9th Wonder (@9thwonder) December 31, 2017
So….@johnlegend performed anyway through the Kanye chants and the boos. I didn’t see Ye again until later that year in Charlotte, NC…
— 9th Wonder (@9thwonder) December 31, 2017
This story was originally posted to Billboard.