Jamie Foxx has collaborated with Kanye West on two hit tracks — Slow Jamz, which was number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 and Gold Digger, which was nominated for Record of the Year in the 2006 Grammys and winner of the award for Best Rap Solo Performance. The two may have gone separate career paths, but Foxx has always said the nicest thing about the controversial rapper.
Foxx also credits West for helping him break into music, which he'd been trying to do since joining the cast of In Living Color in 1991, as he revealed to Ellen DeGeneres and Howard Stern on their shows. Apparently, the future Oscar winner almost gave up on his dreams after a failed attempt at being discovered by new jack swing creator, Teddy Riley. Little did he know, working with the Famous rapper was all the luck he needed. Here's a closer look at Foxx and West's relationship throughout the years.
How They First Met
"One day, I had a house party and a dude walked in," Foxx told The Ellen Show of the time he first met West. "He has a backpack on, and his jaw was a little swollen. Who was it?" The audience answered: Kanye. "Kanye West comes to the party," he continued. "And they say, 'He's the next rapper. He's the next producer.' I said, 'We got to perform' cause everybody performs at the house."
The Django Unchained actor was surprised when West performed. "He does this rap that was amazing," he raved. "I said, 'Oh, he's — I don't know why you ain't famous.' And he says, 'Well, I got a song for you.' I said, 'Well, come on in the back. You got something for me? I been trying to get in this. Come on in the back.'"
However, they hit some creative differences. "So we get in the back and he said, 'The song goes like this [sings first line of Slow Jamz]'," Fox recalled. "But look at me, I been wanting to sing so much, I said, 'I got it, I got it.' [sings a more dramatic version of the lyric] And he like, 'What you doing?' I said, 'I got to put the R&B on it.' He said, 'Don't do that.' And so I like — he said, 'Just sing it simple. Hip-hop is different. Just sing it simple'."
He continued: "So I'm thinking in my mind, 'The song whack.' You know, 'He ain't gonna make it.' You know what I'm saying? This is not gonna work, right? So I sing the song, right? I leave, I'm gonna go do a bad movie and when I come back ... [the audience laughed] When I come back they said, 'You remember the song you thought wasn't gonna make it? It was number one in the country.'"
How Kanye West Helped Jamie Foxx's Career
Before collaborating with West on Slow Jamz, Foxx was struggling to get into music that while dressed in a drag costume during taping breaks, he desperately pitched his demo cassette tape to Teddy Riley who was a guest on In Living Color at that time. Obviously, it was a bad look for the aspiring R&B artist. "So then, so now we do our thing," Foxx told the The Ellen Show.
"We do this movie where I play this guy [does Ray Charles impression], And once that movie [2004's Ray which earned him an Oscar] blew up, Kanye does another song but I'm not on it yet. So my boy said — my boy Breyon, who puts all my music together, he said, 'You gotta get down to the studio. Kanye got a missile.' I said, 'What? It's 3:00 in the morning'"
"So I get down to the studio," Foxx continued. "And Breyon said, 'Follow my lead when we go in here 'cause you gotta get on this record.' When we go in, we hear the record [sings Kanye's line in Gold Digger]. That's what's playing and I'm like, 'Snap.' I'm like, 'Ooh, that's hot.' Breyon said, 'No, it ain't.' I said, 'It ain't?' He says, 'No 'cause you gotta get on it.' He said, 'Foxx, go get in the booth.' He stops the track. We get in the booth and I'm like 'What am I doing?' He said, 'Just come up with something.'"
Foxx said that they stayed in the booth for an hour until they came up with his iconic line in the track: "She take my money, when I'm in need..." He said it's what really put his name on the map. In an interview with Howard Stern in 2017, Foxx said that West "is brilliant because he goes beyond rapping." He added that the rapper "gives everybody an opportunity to hate him in a sense" by giving critics "a situation where you question [him] — but his talent is amazing." Do you guys think that still applies to West's latest antics?
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