Kanye West World

It's just weeks before the forty-eighth annual Grammy Awards, and Kanye West is lounging in a well-appointed suite in Manhattan's swanky Mercer Hotel, now commonly referred to as the site where Russell Crowe, in a fit of rage, hurled a telephone at an unsuspecting employee. Far away from the fabulous chaos that is the downstairs lobby -- Lindsay Lohan, Ben Kingsley and the designer Marc Jacobs are but a few of the boldfacers swirling about -- West tucks into a dinner of roast chicken and squash soup. It doesn't take long for conversation to wind toward the eight Grammy nominations that his second album, Late Registration, has garnered. But before he begins cataloging the specific statues he'd like to see on his mantel, West takes a moment to reflect on how far he's come since he burst on the scene with his stellar debut, The College Dropout, in 2004.

All of the goals he set for himself as a fledgling producer in Chicago years ago have since been achieved, goals that he simply defines as such: "To go gold or platinum," he says, "to have songs that are respected across the board, to have some sort of influence on the culture and to change the sound of music and inspire up-and-coming artists to go against the grain." In West's mind, his mission has already been accomplished: "If I was to say that I hadn't already done all of that, then I'd be on some fake Hollywood bullshit modesty, and that's just plain stupid."

It has become a cliche to call Kanye West arrogant. Whether discussing his music or his style of dress, his intellect or his production prowess, he has absolutely no qualms about patting himself on the back. "Everyone in the country is in therapy and spending all their money on self-help books so their little internal voice will be able to say, 'I am good and I am OK,'" says Fiona Apple producer Jon Brion, who worked closely with West on Late Registration. "If you're going to believe all the stuff about positive thinking and self-actualization, that we affect our environment by the way we think about ourselves, do you want a better example than Kanye West? Fuck Tony Robbins. Kanye West should have infomercials."