This story is about an album, not so much a specific song, and the events that took place when I heard it for the first time.
I remember a lot of it, but some of you who were there might remember more details. I encourage you to comment below, if you like, to help fill in the gaps.
In October 2003, my wife Margot and I needed a change. Slogging her way home through LA traffic, having picked up our infant daughter from daycare on the way home from her job, she’d call me at work. I’d answer and she wouldn’t say a word. She just held up the phone – the screaming 3-month-old in the backseat was the soundtrack to her daily drive. My daughter hated her car seat and my wife hated the 12-mile ride from West LA to Sherman Oaks every day, with every fiber of her being.
I was working in the Universal Music building in Universal City, managing a team of national field marketing reps for the Island Def Jam Music Group. Def Jam was having a moment, with Jay-Z, Ludacris, Ja Rule and others doing huge numbers, and on the rock side we were working everything from Sum 41 to Willie Nelson and Nickelback. As the year was ending, the label group had just shared music from two new artists they thought could blow up in 2004: The Killers and Kanye West.
“The Market Director for the Detroit branch just left,” I wrote in an email to Margot, one day in late October.
“I’d go anywhere with you,” she replied.
“Even Detroit?”
No disrespect to Detroit (ever), but we had branches in New York, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston…but the open spot was in Detroit. There were no takers at that point. I started to mention the idea to my boss – and when he sensed that someone was actually considering the role there, I think it was mine before I finished the sentence. Before I knew it, I was the new Market Director for the UMG Detroit region, and the three of us were on our way, moving into a rental house just days before Christmas 2003.
I had never lived anywhere cold before. It does not snow in Phoenix or Los Angeles. There is no black ice. But we didn’t care. Our little family immediately took to loving Michigan, the four seasons, the kind people, the slower pace. Margot found a great job, we found friends, a neighborhood. Our baby girl played in the colorful fall leaves in our yard and sloshed around in the snow as she grew. We were happy.
Things were crazy at work. In 2004 and 2005, Detroit was a significant music sales market because of the Handleman company, which racked CDs in Kmart and Walmart stores, plus Borders (the now-closed book and music chain). All the big artists came through for meet-and-greets with our sales and marketing team and we hosted a lot of them in the branch. Rihanna came through on her second album, New Edition turned up to promote their reunion album, and many more I’m forgetting.
In August 2005, I got a call about hosting a listening session to hear Kanye West’s eagerly anticipated second album, “Late Registration”, which was coming out in two weeks. Listening sessions were common occurrences, label reps would bring a few unreleased tracks from an upcoming album to get us excited about it. Kanye’s debut album, “The College Dropout”, ruled 2004. It sold over 2 million that year and was critically and commercially successful, as single after single blew up. After a few years of 50 Cent, Ja Rule and Nelly ruling the charts, this was a big change.
And here was Kanye, wanting to come visit us to play the follow up: Kanye himself was coming. And not for just a few handshakes and photos and we’d hear 2 or 3 songs. He wanted to play the entire new album for us, start to finish. And he could watch how we reacted, from a few feet away.
“How’s your sound system? Kanye’s only thing is he wants to make sure it’s top of the line. There’s a lot going on in this record and he’s proud of the production. Are your speakers good? Is your system almost as good as a studio?” asked Jim, the sales exec from the label. They wanted to do it in a local studio but everything was booked.
“Yeah, it’s a great system. Harman Kardon amp and speakers, we use it all the time when artists drop by and we crank it up,” I told him.
And we did. We routinely had to crank down our music when nearby suites in our office building would complain about the noise through the walls or the floor. But our event was scheduled for a Friday night at 7pm, so the other tenants would be gone. I wasn’t worried.
Our branch office was in a pretty basic office building in the suburb of Troy, north of Detroit. About 30 of us were based there and we were all excited for the coming event, as were the retail, radio and press people who were being invited. Our RSVP list grew to 50 or 60 and we started to wonder how everyone was going to fit into our conference room, which was large but featured a massive, unmovable oak table in the center. I figured we’d cram in at the table, line the walls with people, put a few chairs in the back of the room and we’d be fine.
I was told to wait downstairs to meet Jim who was traveling with Kanye. A car pulled up and the two of them got out. No entourage, no bodyguards, no drama. Kanye was dressed in a light denim jacket, a white t-shirt and jeans. This was August 19, 2005, well before he became “Ye”, well before the Grammy stage-crashing, before the Kardashians, before the Trump adventures, before the Presidential run, before he offered to remodel my daughter’s high school gym and remodel their uniforms if they would change their name to the Wolves.
It was also four days before Hurricane Katrina landed in New Orleans, and about two weeks before he went on national TV and had the courage to say the words, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
He was just Kanye, in a denim jacket, confident he’d created a legendary second album, eager for people to hear it. He was humble and seemed kind of nervous. In the elevator up to our floor, he asked about the sound system, I assured him it was outstanding and that people were excited to hear the new music.
At 7pm, we closed the door to the suite and locked it. 70 people (at least) were packed into our conference room, lining the walls, sitting on the floor. The room was long and had two doors, one at each end, with a glass wall on one of the long sides. We positioned a loveseat at the front of the room for Kanye, who walked into the room to applause. He said a few nervous words, thanked everyone, settled in and directed us to dim the lights, close both doors and start the playback.
The record barreled out of the speakers, starting with the intro “Wake Up Mr. West” and right into the 1-2 punch of “Heard Em Say”, featuring Adam Levine and “Touch The Sky”, with Lupe Fiasco and its glorious Curtis Mayfield sample of “Move On Up”. We were all exchanging looks and shaking our heads…these songs are well-known now but this was the first time hearing them, the first time almost anyone was hearing them. “Gold Digger” was already at radio and that came next. Those three tracks started the album and we knew we were only getting started. Kanye bounced up and down in the loveseat, gesturing to us to turn up the volume and rapping along with himself. He didn’t want us to clap in between songs, so we just listened.
Around this time, I noticed it was getting pretty warm in the conference room. There were a lot of humans packed into the space, more than double the usual. A few people were fanning themselves, but it wasn’t bad.
More hits. “Drive Slow” and “Crack Music”, “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” and “Roses”…every song was a smash. More looks at each other, Kanye getting animated.
By now, the room was hot. Like really hot. At this point, the realization came to me (or maybe someone told me) that the building had probably shut off the air-conditioning, as it was now well past 7pm on a Friday, ahead of a weekend. Standard operating procedure for an office building. There wasn’t anything we could do. Kanye didn’t seem to care, even as the fanning continued.
The centerpiece of the album approached. “We Major” is the fourteenth track on the album, a 7-minute long epic with a big verse from Nas. Kanye became more animated as it played, even standing up and half-performing parts of the song, even jumping up on the table at one point. We watched him get into it, nodding along and feeling his energy.
Then, the music…stopped.
Kanye, back on the floor, turned his head slowly and looked over in the direction of the sound system. I looked at Drew, the Def Jam radio guy, whose eyes were wide and whose face was frozen. Jim looked at me. I turned around to the amplifier and put my hand on top of it…it was like touching a white-hot stove.
The amp had overheated.
Sitting on a shelf with no ventilation behind it and faced with the combination of heavy volume and a hot room, the unit gave up. Jim said something to the room about a temporary delay or maybe I did. But everyone was watching Kanye, who was…..agitated, but not saying anything. Everyone but me, that is. All I could think was how he’d asked me about the sound system. I didn’t want to look in his direction. At all.
I wasn’t sure if we’d get to hear the end of the album. There wasn’t a backup amp or anything. What would Kanye say, or do? I pictured having to explain to someone how we couldn’t finish because of equipment failure.
Somehow, some way, a miracle happened. Out of what seemed like nowhere, two small hand-held fans appeared in the hands of Diane and Amanda, the two superhero women who kept our office running. Fans were plugged in and pointed directly at the top of the amplifier by both of them, as Diane calmly reassured everyone we’d be back and running in no time. I had no idea we had fans, or where they came from. It was like some Wonder Twins stuff, like they just made fans appear – made from whatever was nearby.
After what seemed like four hours later (but was probably more like five minutes later), the CD player and amplifier rejoined the party. We started “We Major” over…and listened to the rest of the album, after which we offered thunderous applause and promptly threw open the conference room doors for some freaking air.
I thought Kanye was going to be angry and ready to leave immediately, with us spoiling the flow of the playback. But damn if that guy didn’t sit and take questions from the room – for more than an hour – followed by taking photos with anyone who wanted a picture. Afterward, he thanked us for having him and off he went. And we all thanked Diane and Amanda for coming to our rescue.
“Late Registration” came out 11 days later, selling almost 900,000 copies in its first week – in a pre-streaming world.
To me, the album was worth every bit of the hype. Kanye has made some incredible records even though his persona has overshadowed his work, in my opinion. But this record is still an exhilarating listen for me, as long as I’m in a well-ventilated room.
Mixtape 