Did You Know Kanye West Was In A Group Before Blowing Up?

When was the first time you heard of Kanye West? 

Many of us were introduced to him as the guy who rapped through a wired jaw on “Through the Wire” in 2003. Other listeners who voraciously read through credits might have noticed that he produced multiple tracks on JAY-Z’s 2001 classic, The Blueprint, or even the Hov ballad “This Can’t Be Life” from the year prior.

But years before Kanye became a rising star in music and a go getter in several industries, he was actually a Go Getter.

The Go Getters were a Chicago rap group in the mid-to-late ’90s, consisting of a young Kanye West alongside GLC, Timmy G, and Arrowstar. They were orbited by an extended crew of characters familiar to any Kanye fan, from collaborators like Really Doe, Malik Yusef, and Rhymefest, to the group’s managers: cousins Don C and John Monopoly. 

The beginnings of the group can be traced back to the day Kanye met Monopoly in 1990, when they were each in their early teens. After being introduced by a mutual friend, the pair admired each other’s beatmaking skills and formed a short-lived production company. “I quit making beats nine months after meeting Kanye West because he was so good and it was like, why am I even doing this?” Monopoly recalls with a laugh.

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