Kanye West Was Almost Dropped from Roc-A-Fella Records

Roc-A-Fella Records was often associated with the work of Jay Z and Dame Dash, but Kareem "Biggs" Burke was a major player in the label's success too. The label co-founder appeared on the Rap Radar podcast to promote his Fourth of November clothing line, but delivered a bit of a bombshell about Kanye West. According to Burke, Kanye was nearly dropped from the label before The College Dropout was ever released.

"Me and Kanye would have long, long, long conversations," Burke said. "And you know, he had the idea for the next two or three albums after [The College Dropout]. So, I seen the genius of what he was trying to create. So, I would actually go back and talk to Dame. And Dame was just being at the forefront and would go argue with Lyor [Cohen]. Lyor didn’t believe in him at the time. They wanted to drop Kanye and the Young Gunz while we had 'Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop' and 'Through the Wire.' They was like, 'Take ’em some place else.' And then we went to Capitol [Records]. And they was, you know, we thought they was kind of idiots at the time. We was like, 'We might as well keep it over here at Def Jam' and that’s how he ended up staying there."

When asked why the Def Jam brass had doubts about Kanye West, Kareem Burke explained that "Through the Wire" had not taken off as a single at the time.

"They didn't believe in the project at the time," Burke reiterated. "It was early on, so I think that at that time 'Through the Wire' was only getting about 60 spins. There was this one place in D.C. and Virginia, it caught on fire. They didn't see the potential in the project."

Check out the entire interview with Kareem "Biggs" Burke above for more insight into the glory days of Roc-A-Fella Records as well as his current relationship with Jay Z and Kanye West.

Here are some other highlights from the interview:

- Ma$e was originally on the "Dead Presidents" beat before Jay Z was.
- Roc-A-Fella used to use closed bottles of Cristal for videos and then include shots of the opened bottles to prove they didn't have to return the bottles like other rappers.
- The only person with footage of the infamous Jay Z vs. DMX battle was Big L.
- Roc-A-Fella was close to signing Scarface at one point.
- Biggie had difficulty recording to the "Brooklyn's Finest" beat, as it took him three sessions to record his parts while Jay only needed one session.

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