"Through The Wire" will likely be remembered as one of the greatest debut rap singles of all time, but the crowds who heard it early weren't convinced. 9th Wonder has shared some stories of his come-up alongside Kanye West and John Legend on Twitter, arguing that casual listeners don't necessarily know a great song when they hear it. "Outside of the tastemakers, people don’t listen to music. They watch, and they need qualifiers," he wrote.
According to 9th, he saw Kanye booed while performing "Through The Wire," and his close collaborator John Legend, booed while performing "Ordinary People." He recalled performing at a show as part of Little Brother where Ye rapped "Wire" to "crickets."
At one point during the producer's run of tweets, John responded with his own memory of a show where Kanye wasn't taken seriously.
9th also shared the whole story of his relationship to Kanye as a producer, and how the two played each other instrumentals and eventually upped their beat prices from three to five figures in the span of a year.
He left aspiring artists and producers with an important message. "No matter what...Artists...keep making music...people aren’t checking for it because they don’t know you, not because they took the time to listen," he said, speaking from first-hand experience. "In time.....the 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑 will come."
Read the producer's full thoughts on Twitter.