Producer Devo Springsteen was with Kanye West in the early days.
In a conversation with Bedroom Beethovens he reflected upon Ye's come up -- which he said included lots of tears. [Jump to the two-minute mark.
“You’ve probably heard stories like, ‘Oh, they didn’t wanna sign him’ — no, it was worse. They would ridicule [Kanye] Executives, artists, et cetera would ridicule this guy until he was crying. I’m telling you. And he would still say, ‘I’m going to be the No. 1 artist in the world,'" Springsteen remembered.
Now Kanye is so famous he can pretend to run for President and the entire media has to pretend he might be for real.