Watch A Young Kanye West Rap At Fat Beats in 1996
Yeezus is great and all, but there isn't anything quite like young Kanye West in action. Today a video from 1996 surfaced that showcases young Yeezy freestyling at the opening of the 6th Avenue location of Fat Beats, the NYC indie hip-hop record store and destination for all things underground rap and hip-hop.
West drops only a few lines in the clip, talking about the future, his hometown and ... Alanis Morissette? (Hey, Jagged Little Pill the year before.) DJ Eclipse, Fat Beats' former general manager, was converting old tapes when he encountered the footage of young Kanye, and promptly sent his findings to Complex:
"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."
A stellar surprise, indeed! Check out the clip above.
2m
20m
20m
20m
56m
1m
20m
1m
1m
2m
20m
20m
49s
2m
12m
13m
12m
2m
9m
9m
2m
3m
3m
5m
2m
1m
54s
22m
51s
9m
20m
2m
1h 38m
8m
2m
2m
9m
1m
24m
24m
1m
2m
18m
3644s
1m
1m
39s
1m
20m
1m
24m
1h 16m
5m
2m
2m
21m
1m
41m
45m
20m
41m
4m
3m
1m
20m
1h 25m
1h 42m
22m
20m
24m
1m
21m
43m
20m
1h 39m
47m
1h 5m
1h 11m
20m
24m
22m
22m
21m
21m
44m
20m
21m
22m
3m
1m
1m
3m
3m
3m
4m
3m
1m
42m