Long before he was topping the charts with his G.O.O.D. Music clique, there was a time when Kanye West wasn’t recognized for his ability to rhyme. Now, in a recent interview with Vlad TV, one of Yeezy’s West coast collaborators Game recalled taking a L to the Chicago rapper early in his career.

Game recalled the time Kanye West beat him in a rap battle before either emcee struck it big in the industry. He said that the two met at a party that Nelly threw, and after the event wrapped up, they decided to engage in a friendly battle. Game added that he and ‘Ye went toe-to-toe for much of the battle, until Kanye pulled out all the stops in his final, battle-winning verse.

“Before The Documentary came out, Nelly had a party at Niketown, and everybody was there – Dr. Dre, Swizz [Beatz], Pharrell, a bunch of stars,” he recalled. “Me and Kanye were kinda rookies and what-not; Kanye was still servicing his beats around, I think he just had signed to Roc-a-Fella. So after the party was over, we’re walking to the parking structure, just walking [with] a bunch of chicks…and everybody was like, ‘Yo, Kanye, why don’t you battle Game? Game, why don’t battle Kanye?’ And we were just two hungry artists, so in the parking structure, [we] just took off. ‘Ye rapped first, and he spit and it was that old College Dropout Kanye, and he got off and he really did his thing.”

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He continued, “I gave him probably about 40 bars, just rapping fire, and then he came and he spit like 40 bars. I took it up, and I ended up rapping for like three or four minutes…I felt like I won, and then Kanye, just out of nowhere, started going in about how I thought I was the ‘savior and watch my behavior’ – he just really started going in, and the chicks started being like, ‘Oooh, aah,’ and once the chicks start chiming in, it’s pretty much over.”

Check out the full interview below.

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