Jensen Karp of The Hypemen, recently dropped 1 of 2 unreleased Kanye West beat CDs from 2001.
“Last week I was stumbling through my garage, searching through old storage bins when I came across some old beat CDs from my days as a signed rapper. I was shocked to find that two of them, both given to me in the year 2001, had the name ‘Kanye West’ on them.
“I remember Kanye being hyped to me as someone who had just worked with Beanie Sigel and was about to work with Ludacris, so I was obviously interested in this dude with a weird name. I popped in the CD and wasn’t exactly blown away to be honest. It was definitely good though, so I asked my manager for more beats from this Kanye character.”
Jensen continues his story, as he speaks on picking a track for the label and hearing “H to the Izzo” for the first time.
“I got a second beat CD and again couldn’t find anything to pick directly, but knew there was potential (keep in mind that 2001 was a mighty synth-y year). I got on the phone with Kanye that week and he played me some beats over the phone (that included “H to the Izzo”). I picked one song from that phone call and it ended up being one of the first label paychecks written with his name on it.”
Peep one our favorites from the Cd, and make sure to head over to Djbooth to hear the full stream of the first disc.
