Music News

Kanye West wanted to be big as Jackson

Feb 8, 2012, 6:01 GMT

Kanye West

Kanye West once declared he would be 'the next Michael Jackson.'

The 'POWER' hitmaker is renowned for his outspoken nature and even in his early days as a young rapper he was given to making outlandish statements.

Producer No I.D. - who has worked with Kanye since the start of his career - said: 'One day, we took Kanye to meet former Sony Music Chairman Donnie Ienner, and he danced around singing this song and saying, 'I'm gonna be the next Michael Jackson.'

'To us, it was like, 'This is hip-hop! What are you talking about? Are you kidding me?'

'When we met with former Columbia Records president Michael Mauldin he said 'I want to be better than Jermaine Dupri!' I'm like, 'Are you crazy? That's Jermaine's father! Why would you say that?'

'A lot of silly things happened that day.'

No I.D. - real name Dion Wilson - said the story came back around years later when Kanye had become a star and actually had Michael phoning him up.

He added to Complex.com: 'Michael Jackson called him and asked him about his jacket that he wore in the video for 'Stronger'. I said, 'Oh my God! This dude got Michael Jackson calling him!'

'It was just the irony of it all. I was like, maybe this is this generation's 'that' guy- in the sense of Michael Jackson with the beaded jacket and the Billie Jean socks.'