Sean Redmond

Nobody ever said being the number-one artist in the world was easy. And while Kanye West might not be the first person that superlative brings to mind, he’s still got enough on his hands to at least merit an honorable mention. He’s gone from top-notch beatmaker to top-selling superstar, but still the ego of Mr. West goes unquenched. So, where do you go once you’ve conquered Billboard, the Grammies and the hearts (or at least ears) of everyone from soccer moms to suits-and-ties, when "Gold Digger" can be heard emanating from college dorms, supermarket soundsystems and every other car that roars down the street? Well, if you’re Kanye West, you apparently set your sights on bigger and nobler things.

In an effort to perhaps replace the currently reigning image of himself as egocentric extraordinaire, West has developed his own institution—titled, unsurprisingly, the Kanye West Foundation—whose central program, Loop Dreams, works to bring hip-hop curricula and music-production classes to schools in an effort to motivate students and prevent them from dropping out. And to help benefit the cause, he's spending a day whirlwinding around Chicago, playing for children, auctioning off memorabilia and playing a concert at the House of Blues.

He's also appearing at a press conference with his mother, Donda West, to discuss the Loops Dreams program and announce the "Loop Dreams Stay In School Benefit," which raised money to fund the foundation’s goals, in particular the Loop Dreams Teacher Training Institute to be launched early next year. In true superstar fashion, West won't arrive until about an hour after the meeting’s scheduled start; in the meantime, members of the press slowly finagle their way through Hotel Sax security to the small New Orleans room, where they’re treated to tech men anxiously looking for ways to hang a sponsorship banner and attending to issues with the microphones. Inside, the walls scream opulence in brilliant regal patterns of plum, and little plates offering samples of a new sugar-free gum sit on a table with pitchers of water and lines of cups. Marc Lampkin of the Strong American Schools initiative and John Rogers of Ariel Capital Management, the event’s two title sponsors, eventually sit down to field questions, joined shortly thereafter by Momma West, who makes it strikingly clear where Kanye inherited his outspoken, attention-grabbing persona from. "If you would go to the mirror and look in the mirror and not see yourself, how interested in the mirror would you be?" she demands, alluding to the lack of African-American culture in most high-school curricula. "If you can teach a kid what a metaphor is in a rap, you can teach him the Milton and the Shakespeare necessary to get him to pass the SAT."

But Kanye is the true star of the show, and once he slips casually into the room, decked-out in a pink striped polo and looking none too concerned about his time of arrival, the attendees go wild. Lights and cameras flash on, and it’s taken for granted that every question is now being pointed in his direction. It’s Kanye time—but really, when is not Kanye time?—and he’s completely in his element, balancing serious responses concerning the state of public education with quips about his music, his celebrity and how awesome he is, revealing a little of his M.O. and a whole lot of his ego in the process.

"Children speak in a totally different language," he explains. "[They use] heavy profanity, heavy slang… ." The concept of language applies to his music as well: "When it came time for me to rap I wanted the business man behind his desk, the barber in the barber shop to understand it." In fact, most of his statements end up applying to himself: "By the end of the day, more white people buy rap music than black people," he lets out at one point, "and if you ask any white person, they say I’m their favorite rapper."

This goes on for about forty-five minutes, when he’s abruptly caught off by the program’s overseers—after all he’s got a show to perform and a book-signing to attend to with his mother the next day. But before he’s whisked off in a whir of photo-ops and important-looking attendants, he manages to get one last ego-boost in for the excited crowd. "I want to be the number-one artist in the world," he exclaims—only to take it back a second later. "Sorry, I’m going to be the number-one artist in the world."

(2007-08-31)

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