Will Smith is just one of those iconic figures that it feels like we all grew up with.

Whether you were rockin’ with him since his Fresh Prince days or turning up to one of his 90s hits like “Miami”, chances are that you probably spent your bread to see a few of his movies in your days — and you might’ve even cried during some of them.

The dude is everywhere, always and has been one of the most consistent actors in Hollywood for decades. But of course as you know, that didn’t just happen by accident.

Will Smith is one of the hardest working men in entertainment and luckily for us, he’s down to share the lessons he’s learned any chance he gets. He’s always dropping straight facts and has the wisdom that we should all be opening our ears to. He’ll put things into perspective in a way we can all relate to:

“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”

There’s something different about Will Smith’s energy that you can sense from listening to any one of his interviews. He’s just on another level of thinking and while his ideas may sound a little wild to some, he speaks from experience (and racks).

Realistically, dude could be a motivational speaker if he really wanted to and get paid to inspire others. At least he has an Instagram now, which is the next best thing.

Throughout all the success, Will has remained humble and raised a couple of young stars in Jaden and Willow. His journey is far from over, but there’s still so many things we can pick up and realize just by hearing what the man has to say:

“Money and success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there.”

His way of thinking, which was instilled by his mother and father early on, is that of overcoming fear, not settling for mediocrity, and consistently being the hardest worker at your craft. Will has been at the top for years now and has knowledge that only a few people can say they have.

It seems that most of these inspirational figures from Will Smith to Diddy, Kanye, and The Rock have these same message. We just need to listen more.

Paper bandz make you dance but can digital bandz get you to work out? Well, there’s an app focused on rewarding you with “sweatcoins” for getting the most gains possible.

Sweatcoin is definitely one of a kind technology in your app store that you might just have to cop. Don’t be shook to download it, it’s the most fire app to touch your phone screen since Angry Birds.

When I downloaded it I didn’t know what to expect and to be honest I really didn’t trust the idea. It sounded way too good to be true and the opening screen was extremely sus.

The sign-up process gave me big brother vibes, but the interface was wild hypnotizing so I proceeded and entered my contact information, allowed Sweatcoin to access my GPS location, and granted it access to my Health app.

Felt like I signed my life away, but after verifying myself I felt relieved to find out the app didn’t ask me for a debit card.

What won my trust?  Smartcoin is currently topping app store charts, gaining over 5 million users in the past year and having more than 2 million users on the fitness app weekly. Getting guap for walking is real after all.

🎉 Boom -> US Number 1️⃣ !!! 🎉
Where to from here? pic.twitter.com/bGNHYdYQ18

— Sweatcoin (@Sweatcoin) January 9, 2018

So, how does it work? Once you sign up, Smartcoin records every single step you take outside of a building. Don’t get any bright ideas, if you are on a treadmill indoors it won’t work.

You’re going to have to get innovative if you’re thinking you can rig the system. The GPS can sense if you are inside of a building or not.

Once you’ve had a nice jog, brisk walk, or intense run, Sweatcoin users can cash out by getting paid .95 “sweatcoins” per 1,000 steps.

The coins collected allow exercise junkies to cop the flyest fitness gear, workout classes, gift cards, and plenty more stuff in the app.

The hook is really in the number of coins you can earn per day. There are different tiers of sweatcoin flossin’. Your bossness is measured by how many sweatcoins you want to give up per month.

The five levels are — mover, shaker, quaker, breaker, and troublemaker. Sounds like a lot of fun. Could this be just as fun as getting stoned and working out?

If you’re interested in making some mula for flexing some muscles, get your butt to the app store and download Sweatcoin below.

Android or Apple?

LA rapper Nipsey Hussle has used his entrepreneurial nous to keep pushing the envelope of the music industry and find new ways to monetize his art.

Recently, Nipsey tweeted a breakdown of streaming royalties from different platforms, encouraging users and artists to use Tidal.

https://twitter.com/HotNewHipHop/status/953083055480164358

Nipsey has continued to find different ways to make money off his music, starting his own record company All Money In, partnering with Atlantic, and reaching a small but passionate group of fans that will pay a premium for physical copies of his music.

In November, Nipsey sat down with Complex to discuss how the Atlantic deal will change his independent and radical approach to the music industry.

He told Complex that his deal with Atlantic isn’t a typical distribution deal but a “strategic partnership” to push his music and business forward:

“Basically, it’s a strategic partnership to take the next steps with the Nipsey Hussle story. It’s between the company All Money In, which I’m a part owner in, and Atlantic Records for services of Nipsey Hussle. It’s not a traditional artist to a label signing, you know what I mean? It’s more of us partnering with Atlantic and utilizing their specialties and their strengths to move what we’ve been doing to the next platform in terms of recognition, fan base, access to radio, access to retail, and utilize their staff, and tapping into a specialist.”

One of the most intriguing aspects of Nipsey’s approach is his application of both scarcity and physicality in his album releases. In 2013, Nip sold 1,000 copies of his project Crenshaw for $100 each.

While the mixtape was available for free download, Nipsey capitalized on his more voracious fans to buy a physical copy of the record (Jay-Z bought 100 copies). In 2015, Nipsey sold hard copies of his album for $1,000 each, again selling out and providing physical copies at a premium, while also allowing for free online downloading.

Peep my new mini-doc “10 Rings” in celebration of my my Debut Album: #VictoryLap 2.16.18 (Pre Order Link In Bio) Doc Available Now On: @tidal/NipseyHussle

A post shared by Nipsey Hussle (@nipseyhussle) on Jan 11, 2018 at 10:54am PST

This approach has since been adopted by artists like Eminem and Wu-Tang Clan.

When Complex asked Nipsey about his use of scarcity, he was quick to say it’s not about scarcity, it’s about money:

“Well, I wouldn’t say that All Money In is in the business of scarcity. I would say that the Nipsey Hussle Crenshaw release was an example of All Money In creating an artificial scarcity campaign for the physical side of Crenshaw. The digital version of it was everywhere; on iTunes, on the pay sites—the same way that Atlantic will have all of our digital stuff on all the pay sites. So the distinguishing part of that campaign was the physical copy was limited, and it wasn’t distributed through traditional retail. That was more of a #Proud2Pay approach, more than an All Money In approach. It was a direct-to-consumer strategy for the hard copy, because all the digital versions of the album were released traditionally.”

By making his projects available for a premium, Nipsey is creating an intimate and monetary relationship with his bigger fans, a sect of Nipsey Hussle fans that will spend almost anything to support his mission. He told Complex about this intimacy:

“I just think that’s how life works; I don’t think you get anything to a million people at a time. I think that’s unrealistic. I don’t think a human being observed that. I think that business introduced that ideology. I think human things happen intimate.”

And this intimate relationship becomes automatic organic marketing, those fans will feel like they’re part of a movement:

“So the goal would be, as a content creator, to create a piece of content that affects one person so much that they gotta go share it, and they become your marketing. They become the legs for what you’re doing. Because if you focus and zero in, you can inspire a person to a degree that they work for the movement. That’s not a night and day window. It’s not when they check run out, they stop campaignin’. They are inspired, and you planted somethin’ in ’em. They walk into a room, and if there’s nine people that don’t know about you, they feel like they got a dope opportunity to gain currency with nine people by puttin’ ’em on somethin’ dope.”

On a slightly different tip, Nipsey spoke about his work in his community and building a STEM school in inner-city Los Angeles in order to reach and inspire underprivileged students:

“Basically a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) compound that we built in the hood. It’s a 5,000 square foot compound—[it] used to be the Wonder Bread factory. And us, as All Money In, and our real estate development partner, Dave Gross, partnered up.”

But as for that relationship with his fans, Nipsey Hussle has now invested in Vezt, a platform that connects artists and consumers through blockchain technology.

With Vezt, artists can monetize their own product to fans, eliminating a middle man in the space between the music and the listeners.

Again, this provides artists with the opportunity to capitalize on their fans and take financial ownership of their art.

Nipsey recently received backlash for perceived homophobic comments about images of Black masculinity in the media, sparring with activist and BLM leader Deray McKesson on Twitter.

It was definitely discouraging to see someone who has been so revolutionary and progressive in his business and his work in his community pedal a seemingly bigoted agenda and we hope Nip walks those comments back.

Regardless, Nipsey’s approach to the business side of music is something many artists should look to for inspiration in reaching their fans or monetizing their content.

Action Bronson’s path to the top is unlike any other rapper in the game today.

No, he’s not from the hood, but he’s from Flushing, Queens, the most diverse cultural melting pot in NYC (and maybe the world). And no, his first passion wasn’t rapping, it was cooking.

His whole music career and rise to stardom almost feels like something that shouldn’t have happened, but Action is just way too charismatic and filthy with the bars not to have a stage. So as fate had it, he found his own lane in the game within only a few short years. So how did he manage to do it?

When you see Action Bronson all over VICELAND these days, fucking around in the kitchen, taking dabs with Emeril, and cheffing up some of the most delicious looking cuisine on TV, he’s not fronting.

Action was really a flame gourmet chef in the city for years but he got his start after dropping out of high school and working at his Albanian father’s Mediterranean restaurant where he sharpened his skills.

Before all of that, it was the food his Jewish mother and grandmother made him as a child that made him fall in love with food and start to develop that passion. Rapping was just a side thing he knew he was kind of good at but he didn’t actually get to pursue until he broke his leg in the kitchen slipping on some oil one day, and was forced out of work.

Unable to work in the kitchen, Action got his ass in the studio and that was probably the best switch up he could’ve made.

After just a couple of projects and singles, he was getting noticed by some of the most legendary producers in the city, namely Statik Selektah. He put Action on by collaborating on a whole tape together and things took off from there. Action got signed, began touring, started collaborating, built his brand, and the rest is history.

He was actually able to use his music platform as a way to get back into the kitchen and launch a bunch of shows from Fuck, That’s Delicious, Ancient Aliens, and the brand new, very fire, The Untitled Action Bronson Show.

At the end of the day, Action Bronson was going to be great at whatever he put his mind to. We’re just lucky that the platform he chose allowed him to do both music and become this chef personality that the culinary world needs.

Shout out to Action and shout out to Queens.

You’ve probably heard of Canva, the multimedia platform that allows you to create virtually everything: greeting cards, blog graphics, flyers, Facebook designs, you name it.

Canva’s CEO is now the youngest woman to be leading a $1 billion startup, 30-year-old Melanie Perkins.

As a 22-year-old Commerce and Communications college dropout, Perkins, who hails from Perth, Australia, spent 6 months in San Francisco, pitching the idea to investors and constantly dealing with rejection.

Perkins shared with Mashable.

“It’s still extremely early days for us yet, and we feel like we’ve done one percent of what we believe is possible but it’s quite exciting to get to this point in time, and it’s been a huge journey.”

Melanie started tampering with creating a platform when she was still living at her mother’s house. She became frustrated using design software during her university days, and decided to do something about it.

Alongside her partner Chris, Melanie created Fusion Books, which is a software to simply design yearbooks. After seeing how greatly successful Fusion Books had become, reaching number one in Australia and New Zealand, Melanie considered expanding the product to reach other forms of design.

In the early stages, the startup had only 250 employees, and very few believers.

“It was actually quite funny, the other day I was looking through some of the emails from early on and there were so many rejections in the early days, it was such a struggle to get things started.”

Bill Tai, technology investor and chairman of Treasure Data, met with Melanie in Palo Alto, California. He was on his phone the whole time, so she assumed he wasn’t interested in the idea. Turns out he loved it and invested in it, and went on to introduce Melanie to a new network of investors who would be interested in it, too.

A few years later, Google executive Cameron Adams joined Canva team, backing the project up with $3 million. According to BBC, Canva’s financials doubled within the past year, from $6.8 million to $23.5 million.

Right now, Canva reaches a national audience, with 10 million users on it as well as a new design every 10 seconds. It’s available in 179 countries.

By charging a fee to unlock all of its service tools, Canva was able to raise $82 million.

Melanie and her boyfriend Chris have held their positions as CEO and executive chairman for the company, continue to run Fusion Books, and yes, their relationship is still going strong.

“It was three years between first pitching to an investor and actually landing investment,” Melanie tells BBC, “This is an incredibly long period of time, and we had hundreds of rejections along the way.

Melanie’s story reminds us that anything is possible as long as you put the work in it.

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson cleared $65 million at the box office last year, rounding him out as one of the top two highest grossing actors for the second consecutive year in a row.

Back-to-back finishes as one of the top two highest earning actors, at a glance, makes a lot more sense for a host of other names in Hollywood before it does for Dwayne Johnson, but it’s a run that the late great film critic Robert Ebert saw over a decade ago.

After the Rock’s 2003 performance in The Rundown, which featured a brief cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger, he wrote:

“Whether The Rock will rival Schwarzenegger’s long run as an action hero is hard to say,” Ebert wrote. “But on the basis of ‘The Rundown,’ he has a good chance.”

Now with the success of Jumanji, which scored an impressive $37.3 million last weekend, beating out The Last Jedi for the fourth consecutive week, it’s clear that such is the case, in a major, major way.

Between the HBO show Ballers, The Fate of the Furious, Baywatch, and Jumanji, one would assume The Rock was making up for lost time. But according to him, it’s that kind of relentlessness that creates those types of opportunities.

In an interview with Vanity Fair  last year, he spoke on just that.

“It’s hard work and gratitude. You have to be focused, and you don’t come to the table with an ego. Once you reach a level of success, it’s about never taking anything for granted and showing gratitude. I am lucky to surround myself with smart people who are willing to take risks and willing to fail with me. I don’t have all the answers, and they’ve helped me. You also have to believe in yourself. When you start doubting yourself and start being someone else, things won’t work.”

While jumping onto already successful franchises like, The Mummy, Fast and Furious, and G.I. Joe helped add to The Rock’s cache and overall grossing power, pushing his range to play in movies like Race to Witch Mountain, Tooth Fairy, and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island showed he was willing to fail to be the type of movie star he is today.

Dwayne Johnson had all intentions of going pro when he went to Miami to play college football and while at the peak of his wrestling years he had no clue he was going into the movie business.

No wonder why he approaches the film industry like he has nothing to lose — he broke into Hollywood as an outsider. It was his failures that helped fuel the star he is today.

There are not many actors that can juggle multiple big budget feature films in a calendar year if they wanted to, let alone getting the opportunity to feature in them, making The Rock’s run that more legendary.

With a new year underway The Rock is up to it again.

As of right now, he has a staggering 15-plus, projects in his slate. With his recipe of humor, action, and big budgets. there’s a strong possibility he can finish as the highest grossing actor – or top two — again for the third consecutive year.

It seems like the key to dominating Hollywood is to never stop, and if he keeps cracking out these hits, I don’t see why he would.

Oprah is a name our generation and many others will have grown up hearing and teaching their children. She’s a national and global influence for so many people. She is as powerful as she is beautiful, inspirational as she is motivational.

In her Golden Globes acceptance speech (2018), Oprah remembers being inspired by Sidney Poitier’s win of the Cecil B. DeMille Award while watching the show on her mother’s television when she was a kid. Oprah’s experience was equally impactful, to think that she went from a little girl staring at the television with wide eyes to the most successful woman today is shocking.

Best known for The Oprah Winfrey Show, Lady O’s very own talk show wasn’t an easy one to obtain. Oprah, whose original name was Orpah Gail Winfrey, was born to an unwed teenage mother who had moved them to rural Kosciusko, Mississippi to live with her grandmother.

She grew up in such poverty stricken conditions, she had to wear potato sacks as dresses, prompting the local children to verbally and physically abuse her.

Starting her career as a young Black woman was a difficult one, to say the least. As a child, she’d entertain her “audience” by speaking to farm animals. When she was a teenager living with her father in Nashville, She worked at a grocery store next to his barber shop, where she wasn’t even allowed to speak to her customers during store hours.

After a grueling time at work, at the age of 19, she caught her first break from Channel 5’s Chris Clark. She had lied and said she was able to write news stories and operate a camera when interviewed by Clark. That, coupled with her poised and confident attitude, Oprah landed the position.

By the time Clark recognized she was unable to do either, he had already seen Oprah on camera, and it had become too late. Straight from her website, Clark mentions the “magic’ that Oprah exudes which captures us all.

“What you see in Oprah today is what I saw so many years ago. Oprah, you had the magic to communicate on television, and that is natural born. You just can’t learn that. You can’t develop that. You got it or you don’t got it.”

From there, it was history. Oprah’s recent Golden Globe speech said so many things in a few short minutes that dissecting one portion of her words wouldn’t be enough for a singular conversation. The biggest takeaway is now there is speculation that in just 2 short years, Oprah will be running for president.

While these are still speculations, there has been a ton of controversy that’s already emerged from news outlets, but, as usual, she isn’t letting it phase her. The polymath of media remains as poised and collected as she was during Chris Clark’s interview all those years ago, leaving us to guess if she will be taking over the political world in a short period of time.

For now, Oprah has all of our support no matter the direction her career decides to take. The mogul has love that reaches national borders, and is sure to crush any opposition that stands her way, no matter what Donald Trump believes.

#Oprah2020

Top Dawg Entertainment, founded by Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith in 2003, has become one of the most influential record labels in music over the past five years.

TDE’s growth has been as meteoric as it has bene organic, growing out of Tiffith’s home studio to the most successful indie label in hip-hop, if not all of American music.

Tiffith has built TDE up by watching his predecessors, including Dr. Dre and Puffy.  Jimmy Iovine, CEO of Interscope, which has a distribution deal with TDE, spoke to Billboard in 2014 about how Tiffith studied those that came before him:

“Top Dawg’s direction is based on a lot of stuff Interscope has been a part of for the last 20 years. Top has been a great student of what Dre has done with classic labels like Death Row and Aftermath, and now he’s taking that game plan with modern music and approaches.”

Anthony Tiffith grew one of the most successful labels in American music out of a garage in Watts, California. Here’s how he did it, in his own words.

On learning from mistakes

TDE hasn’t gotten to this point without some trials and tribulations. Previous distribution and marketing deals with bigger labels have failed. But Tiffith has spoken about using failure as a lesson.

When a deal with Warner Bros fell apart over an attempted restructuring of distribution of Jay Rock’s debut album, Tiffith and co. took the experience as an opportunity. He told VIBE in 2013:

“Really, just hard work, learning lessons as we go and our whole situation at Warner Bros. with Jay Rock. Jay Rock is pretty much our guinea pig. When TDE first got signed to a label, I thought we was on our way. Going through all that bullshit taught us how to really win.”

Tiffith spoke to Billboard in August about how that early experience with Warner Bros. changed their idea of the necessity of bigger labels:

“Then, the bullshit happened at Warner Bros. So now, we have to regroup. I sit down with everybody and say, ‘Yo, it’s time to go hard. Fuck chasing these labels. We’re going to make these labels chase us.'”

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On showing the youth “something different”

Almost the entitreity of TDE’s roster is from the greater Los Angeles area. Tiffith has known many of his artists since they were kids and his own past in certain activities has motivated him to provide an alternative to gang life.

He told Billboard about showing his artists “something different”:

“Growing up in the era of the gangsta shit, a lot of my friends were getting killed, a lot of friends were in the pen, I got shot. When I got with the [TDE artists], it was up to me to show them something different — to lock them in my studio and make them build a bond as brothers, and struggle a little bit.”

Tiffith didn’t just provide a career alternative, but a familial one as well:

“I had the money to do whatever I wanted, but they weren’t going to appreciate shit if I just handed it off to them. So they were rushing to McDonald’s to look at what’s on the dollar menu, or going to get a River Boat special from Louisiana Fried Chicken. But I was showing them family life because my family lives in this house, too.”

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On young Kendrick

Ultimately, a label’s success is determined by the talent on their roster. It doesn’t matter how interesting or unorthodox the business model is if they don’t make good music, but TDE has found massive success despite a roster that holds only eight total artists.

Their transcendent talent is, of course, Kendrick Lamar, and Tiffith recalls a 16-year-old Kendrick coming into the studio. Despite Lamar’s clear talent, Tiffith tried to act like he wasn’t interested… it wasn’t easy.

From VIBE:

“I put him in the booth and put this double time beat on, trying to throw him off. He went in there and started going off! So I’m trying to play like I’m not paying attention. He notices I’m not moving and starts going crazy. So I look up and I’m like, ‘God damn. He’s a monster.’ So the next day I had a contract for him.”

You gotta be able to recognize talent, but also act on it quickly when you identify that diamond in the rough.

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On being lowkey

Many have compared Tiffith to Suge Knight, the embattled former Death Row head. It’s a comparison that Tiffith doesn’t seem to enjoy. When Billboard brought up the comparison, Tiffith responded,

“Have you seen any of [Suge’s] qualities in me? You’re not seeing me go crazy, beating on anybody, arrested every week. If they were talking about success, I would’ve been cool with that because he had great success. But they judge us brothers like that. They put us all in the same box.”

Suge Knight’s style, abrasive and omnipresent, is a far cry from Tiffith’s own managerial style. He told Billboard that his uncle [former gang leader-turned-community activist Mike Concepcion] taught him to stay out of the spotlight:

“I learned from my uncle. When I got in the streets, he was always like, ‘Be low-key. Don’t be no loud n—a.’ And just watching, like, JAY-Z and Puff. I don’t dance. I can’t jump in no video.”

With TDE, it’s the artists, not the label heads, making the headlines.

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On wanting to see the whole team make it

With the massive success of Kendrick, and now SZA, Top Dawg can basically rest on its laurels, but Tiffith told VIBE that he wants to see his entire roster see just as much success and become moguls within the industry.

“I want to get Jay Rock, Soul, Q these platinum records and just sit back…Those are the four dudes that I been with forever and these are the dudes I want to see rich. Eight to ten years is a lot of time to be messing around with these n****s man. [I want] each of them to get they own label, branch out limbs from TDE.”

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On advice from Dre and doing it ‘for the love’

Dr. Dre is a clear inspiration for the braintrust at TDE. Dre’s a man from similar circumstances who has become one of the most successful figures in American music history.

But it takes a special mindset to continue to work after achieving virtually everything there is to do. Tiffith told Billboard about a special meeting with Dre and being inspired by his love of the music:

“When we first went into the situation with Interscope, I told Dre, ‘We do shit different, and I have to maintain that freedom.’ He said, ‘Yo, I love what you’re doing – I just want to be part of it. Keep doing y’all.’ Dre’s smart. He took me to his house. When he showed me his backyard, I was like, ‘What the f-?’ You could see the whole city from there! Looking at that view, Dre said, ‘Man, you can get this. I came from Compton, you came from Watts; work hard, and this can be yours.’ But it’s not about money with Dre: He just does it for the love, which was the most inspiring thing of all. When you do shit for the love, that’s when you get your best shit.”

Success is cool. Making something you believe in and love is truly special.

Apple made Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre billionaires when the tech giant bought Beats Electronics in 2014. Now, with their contracts with Apple up this summer, Iovine and Dre are set to cash in on some lucrative Apple stock.

According to Variety, Iovine and Dre’s stock holdings are set to vest in August and the entertainment magazine speculated that they are about to rake in a cool $700 million.

Iovine, who has had an unspecified role at Apple since 2014, was behind the formation of Apple Music, shifting the Silicon Valley company away from their iTunes model to a more streaming-focused platform.

But with Iovine’s contract up and all that bread waiting for him later this year, it’s unclear what’s next in the relationship between Iovine and Apple.

https://giphy.com/gifs/hip-hop-dr-dre-tanning-of-america-3c0WkPjzHBLbO

According to Variety’s sources, Iovine has been ready to leave the company,

“Iovine’s plan was always to exit once hitting the last of his exercise options over a three-year vesting period. He could, however, continue to work with Apple in a consulting role.”

But, as Lisbeth Barron, CEO of strategic advisory form Barron International Group, told Variety, Jimmy Iovine has become a needed figurehead at Apple, losing him may bring a very difficult set of problems for the company,

“When Apple lost Steve Jobs they needed a creative dynamo to fill his shoes, someone with his passion and insight in the industry to fill that tough spot, and very few were up to that task. Jimmy is one of the few.”

Iovine has basically filled Steve Jobs’ shoes since the Apple founder passed away, so it’ll be fascinating to see what Iovine, as well as his creative and business partner Dr. Dre, do when their contracts with Apple run out this summer.

Will Iovine and Dre continue to refine the Apple Music vision or depart for greener pastures? Wherever the duo take their talents, they’ll have the necessary bankroll to keep changing up the industry.

When Kanye dropped “Through the Wire” and we heard the kid from Chicago rap for the first time with his mouth all wired shut, we knew he was going to be something special.

But nobody could’ve predicted that he was going to become this cultural icon who shifts the sound of music, creates products everyone cops, and become a figure of free speech, but it’s 2020 and here we are.

There’s no doubt that Kanye has evolved over the years, and not just with his musical production, but with his personality and brand. Then again, looking back on it, he also hasn’t changed too much at all. Since Ye came in the game, he knew exactly what he wanted to be and had the determination to play it all out.

In an early interview with MTV, Kanye dropped a bunch of jewels when he was only just breaking into the game as a solo artist. Coming up as a producer, he had to finesse his way into the spots he wanted to be and nothing came easy for him.

Luckily, his gift as this once in a generation producer got him noticed quickly and he was able to flip it from being the “producer trying to be a rapper nobody took seriously,” to a Grammy award winning rap artist that no one can stop talking about.

Kanye may get a bad rap for having a big ego but you can’t hate on a guy who makes bold predictions and backs it up years later. You will see that even early on, Kanye always had the mindset to be one of the greatest to ever do it.

The wildest part is that he envisioned all of this. Where he is today is where he saw himself 20 years ago. Peep the video above to see how a young Kanye already ideated his path.