Last Call by Kanye West - Lyrics and Translation

VERSE

Last Call

Kanye West

Last Call

Song byKanye West

in AlbumCollege Dropout

[Intro: Jay-Z (Kanye)]

[laughing]

Yo fuck you, Kanye, first and foremost

For making me do this shit. Muh'fucker

Had to throw everybody out the motherfucking room

'Cause they don't fucking..

(I'd like to propose a toast)

(I said toast motherfucker)

[Chorus: Kanye]

And I am (here's to the roc)

And they ask me, they ask me, they ask me, I tell them (here's to Rocafella)

Raise your glasses, your glasses, your glasses to the sky (here's to the roc)

This is the last call for alcohol, for the... (here's to Rocafella)

So get your ass up off the wall

[Verse 1]

The all around the world Digital Underground, Pac

The Rudloph the red nosed reindeer of the Roc

I take my chain, my 15 seconds of fame

And come back next year with the whole fucking game

Ain't nobody expect Kanye to end up on top

They expected that College Dropout to drop and then flop

Then maybe he stop savin' all the good beats for himself

Rocafella's only niggaz that help

My money was thinner than Sean Paul's goatee hair

Now Jean Paul Gaultier cologne fill the air, here

They say he bourgie, he big-headed

Won't you please stop talking about how my dick head is

Flow infectious, give me 10 seconds

I'll have a buzz bigger than insects in Texas

It's funny how wasn't nobody interested

'Til the night I almost killed myself in Lexus

[Chorus]

[Verse 2]

Now was Kanye the most overlooked? Yes sir

Now is Kanye the most overbooked? Yes sir

Though the fans want the feeling of A Tribe Called Quest

But all they got left is this guy called West

Better take Freeway, throw him on tracks with Mos Def

Call him Kwa-lI or Kwe-li, I put him on songs with Jay-Z

I'm the Gap like Banana Republic and Old Navy, and oooh

It come out sweeter than old Sadie

Nice as Bun-B when I met him at the Source awards

Girl he had with him - ass coulda won the horse awards

And I was almost famous, now everybody loves Kanye

I'm almost Raymond'

Some say he arrogant. Can y'all blame him?

It was straight embarrassing how y'all played him

Last year shoppin my demo, I was tryin' to shine

Every motherfucker told me that I couldn't rhyme

Now I could let these dream killers kill my self-esteem

Or use my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams

I use it as my gas, so they say that I'm gassed

But without it I'd be last, so I ought to laugh

So I don't listen to the suits behind the desk no more

You niggaz wear suits 'cause you can't dress no more

You can't say shit to Kanye West no more

I rocked 20,000 people, I was just on tour, nigga

I'm Kan, the Louis Vuitton Don

Bought my mom a purse, now she Louis Vuitton Mom

I ain't play the hand I was dealt, I changed my cards

I prayed to the skies and I changed my stars

I went to the malls and I balled too hard

'Oh my god, is that a Black Card?'

I turned around and replied, why yes but I prefer the term

African American Express

Brains, power, and muscle, like Dame, Puffy, and Russell

Your boy back on his hustle, you know what I've been up to

Killin y'all niggaz on that lyrical shit

Mayonnaise colored Benz, I push Miracle Whips

[Chorus]

"... last call for alcohol, for my niggaz"

[Outro]

So this A&R over at Rocafella, named Hiphop

picked the Truth beat for Beanie. And I was in the session with him

I had my demo with me. You know, like I always do

I play the songs, he's like "Who that spittin?"

I'm like "It's me." He's like "Oh, well okay."

Uhh, he started talkin to me on the phone

going back and forth, just askin me to send him beats

And I'm thinking he's trying to get into managing producers

cause he had this other kid named Just Blaze he was messin with

And um, he was friends with my mentor, No ID

And No ID told him, "look man, you wanna mess with Kanye

you need to tell him that you like the way he rap"

[No ID:] "Yo, you wanna sign him, tell him you like how he rap"

I was all, I dunno if he was gassin' me or not

but he's like he wanna manage me as a rapper AND a producer

[Hiphop:] "I'll sign you as a producer and a rapper",

I'm like oh shit

I was messin with, uh, D-Dot also

People were like this, started talking about the Ghost production

But that's how I got in the game. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be here

So you know. After they picked that Truth beat

I was figuring I was gonna do some more work

But shit just went poppin off like that. I was stayin in Chicago

I had my own apartment. I be doin' like, just beats for local acts

just to try to keep the lights on, and then to go out and buy

get a Pelle Pelle off lay-away, get some Jordans or something

or get a TechnoMarine, that's what we wore back then

I made this one beat where I sped up this Hal Melville sample

I played it for Hip over the phone, he's like "oh, yo that shit is crazy

Jay might want it for this compilation album he doin, called The Dynasty."

And at that time, like the drums really weren't soundin' right to me

so I went and um, I was listening to Dre Chronic 2001 at that time

and really I just, like picked the drums off Xxplosive and put it like

with it sped up, sampled, and now it's kind of like my whole style

when it started, when he rapped on 'This Can't be Life.'

And that was like, really the first beat of that kind that was on the Dynasty album

I could say that was the, the resurgence of this whole sound

You know, I got to come in and track the beat, and at the time

I was still with my other management. I really wanted to roll with

Hiphop. 'Cause I, I just needed some fresh air, you know what I'm

sayin, 'cause I been there for a while, I appreciated what they did

for me, but, you know there's a time in every man's life where he

gotta make a change, try to move up to the next level. And that day I

came and I tracked the beat and I got to meet Jay-Z and he said, "oh

you a real soulful dude" [Jay-Z: "you a real soulful dude"]. And he

uh, played the song 'cause he already spit his verse by the time I got

to the studio, you know how he do it, one take. And he said

[Jay-Z:] "check this out, tell me what you think of this, right here"

"tell me what you think of this." And I heard it, and I was thinking

like, man, I really wanted more like of the simple type Jay-Z, I ain't

want like the, the more introspective, complicated rhy- or the, in my

personal opinion. So he asked me, "what you think of it?"

[Jay-Z:] "so what you thinkin?"

And I was like, "man that shit tite,"

you know what I'm sayin', man what I'ma tell him? I was on the train

man, you know. So after that I went back home. And man I'm, I'm just

in Chicago, I'm trying to do my thing. You know, I got groups. I got

acts I'm trying to get on, and like there wasn't nothin really like

poppin' off the way it should have been. One of my homeys that was one

of my artists, he got signed. But it was supposed to really go through

my production company, but he ended up going straight with the

company. So, like I'm just straight holdin' the phone, gettin' the bad

news that dude was tryin' to leave my company. And I got evicted at

the same time. So I went down and tracked the beats from him, I took

that money, came back, packed all my shit up in a U-Haul, maybe about

ten days before I had to actually get out. So I ain't have to deal

with the landlord 'cause he's a jerk. Me and my mother drove to

[Mother:] "Come on, let's just go"

Newark, New Jersey. I hadn't even seen my apartment.

I remember I pulled up

[Mother:] "Kanye, baby, we're here",

I unpacked all my shit. You know, we went to Ikea, I bought a

bed, I put the bed together myself. I loaded up all my equipment, and

the first beat I made was, uh, 'Heart of the City.'

And Beans was still working on his album at that time, so I came up

there to Baseline, it was Beans' birthday, matter of fact, and I

played like seven beats. And, you know I could see he's in the zone

he already had the beats that he wanted, I did nothing like already at

that time. But then Jay walked in. I remember he had a GuccI bucket

hat on. I remember it like, like it was yesterday. And Hiphop said

"yo play that one beat for him." And I played 'Heart of the City.' And

really I made 'Heart of the City,' I really wanted to give that beat to DMX.

[Hiphop:] "No I think Jay gon' like this one right here".

And I played another beat, and I played another beat. And I remember that

GuccI bucket, he took it and like put it over his face and made one of

them faces like 'OOOOOOOOOOH.' Two days later I'm in Baseline and I seen

Dame. Dame didn't know who I was and I was like "yo what's up I'm Kanye."

[Dame:] "Yo, you that kid, Kanye?"

"You that kid that gave all them beats to Jay?

Yo, this nigga got classics"

[Dame:] "Jay got classics, G."

You know I ain't talkin shit.

I'm like "oh shit." And all this time I'm starstruck, man. I'm

still thinking 'bout, you know I'm picturing these niggaz on the show

The Streets is Watching, I'm lookin, these were superstars in my

eyes. And they still are, you know. So, Jay came in and he spit all

these songs like in one day, and in two days... I gotta bring up one

thing, you know, come back to the story, the day I did the 'Can't be

Life' beat on track, I remember Lenny S, he had some Louis Vuitton

sneakers on, he think he fly. And Hiphop was there, I think Tata, John

Minnelli, a bunch of people. I didn't know all these people at the

time they was in the room, and I said, "yo Jay I could rap." And I

spit this rap that said, uh "I'm killin y'all niggaz on that lyrical

shit. Mayonnaise colored Benz, I push miracle whips." And I saw his

eyes light up when I said that line. But you know the West, the rap

was like real wack and shit, so that's all the response.

He said "man that was tite."

[Jay-Z:] "That, that was cool. That was hot."

That was it. You know, I ain't get no deal then, hehe.

Okay, fast forward.

So, Blueprint, H to the Izzo, my first hit single. And I just

took that proudly, built relationships with people. My relationship

with KwelI I think was one of the best ones to ever happen to my

career as a rapper. Because, you know, of course later he allowed me

to go on tour with him. Man, I appre-- I love him for that. And at

this time, you know I didn't have a deal, I had songs, and I had

relationships with all these A&R's, and they wanted beats from me, so

they'd call me up, I'd play them some beats. "Gimme a beat that sound

like Jay-Z." You know, they dick riders. Whatever. So I'll play them

these post-Blueprint beats or whatever and then I'll play my shit. I'll

be like, "yo but I rap too." Hey, I guess they was lookin' at me crazy

'cause you know, 'cause I ain't have a jersey on or whatever

Everybody out there listen here. I played them 'Jesus Walks' and they

didn't sign me. You know what happened, it was some A&R's that fucked

with me though, but then like the heads, it'd be somebody at the

company that'll say "naw." Like, Dave LottI fucked with me, my

nigga Mel brought me to a bunch of labels. Jessica Rivera, man

[Jessica:] "Man, you niggaz is stupid if y'all don't sign Kanye, for real."

I'm not gonna say nothin to mess my promotion up

"Y'all niggaz is stupid". Let's just say I didn't get my deal.

The nigga that was behind me, I mean,

he wasn't even a nigga, you know?

The person who actually kicked everything off was Joe 3H from Capitol

Records. He wanted to sign me really bad.

[Joe:] "We gonna change the game, buddy."

Dame was like, "yo you got a deal with Capitol,

okay man, just make sure it's not wack."

[Dame:] "you gotta make sure it's not wack."

Then one day I just went ahead and played it, I wanted to

play some songs, 'cause you know Cam was in the room, Young Guru, and

Dame was in the room. So I played... actually it's a song that you'll

never hear, but maybe I might use it. So, it's called 'Wow.'

"I go to Jacob with 25 thou, you go with 25 hundred, wow

I got eleven plaques on my walls right now

You got your first gold single, damn, nigga, wow."

Like the chorus went. Don't bite that chorus, I might still use it. So

I play that song for him, and he's like "oh shit"

[Dame:] "Oh shit it's not even wack."

"I ain't gonna front, it's kinda hot."

[Dame:] "it's actually kinda hot."

Like they still weren't looking at me

like a rapper. And I'm sure Dame figured, 'like man. If he do a whole

album, if his raps is wack at least we can throw Cam on every song and

save the album, you know. So uh Dame took me into the office, and he's

like "yo man, we, we on a brick, we on a brick"

[Dame:] "you don't wanna catch a brick"

You gotta be under an umbrella, you'll get rained on.

I told Hiphop and Hiphop was all, "oh, word?" Actually, even with

that I was still about to take the deal with Capitol 'cause it was

already on the table and 'cause of my relationship with 3H. That, you

know, 'cause I told him I was gonna do it, and I'm a man of my word, I

was gonna roll with what I said I was gonna do. Then, you know, I'm

not gonna name no names, but people told me, "oh he's just a producer

rapper" and told 3H that told the heads of the Capitol, and right--

the day I'm talking about, I planned out everything I was gonna do

man, I had picked out clothes, I already started booking studio

sessions, I started arranging my album, thinking of marketing schemes

man I was ready to go. And they had Mel call me, they said

"yo... Capitol pulled on the deal"

[Mel:] "Yo, Capitol pulled out on the deal."

And, you know I told them that Rocafella was interested

and I don't know if they thought that was just something I was saying

to gas them up to try to push the price up or whatever. I went up... I

called G, I said, "man, you think we could still get that deal with Rocafella?"

LanguageEnglish

Translated byAllen Morningstar

About this Song

Last Call by Kanye West is an autobiographical track where Kanye recounts his rise to fame in the music industry. He reflects on his journey from being a struggling producer to becoming a successful rapper. The song delves into his personal anecdotes, the challenges he faced, and the pivotal moments that defined his career. Key themes in the song include perseverance, ambition, and the importance of believing in oneself. Particularly poignant moments include Kanye's detailed recollection of how he got signed by Roc-A-Fella Records and the emotional gravity of his near-fatal car accident, which became a turning point in his life.