'Hopefully I get radio!' Never before seen 2002 MTV interview with Kanye West reveals the rapper's humble beginnings

Before Kanye West went platinum multiple times and proposed to Kim Kardashian, he was simply another rap hopeful.

An enlightening and rather endearing MTV interview with the 36-year-old rapper from all the way back in 2002 has just been unearthed, showing the now bombastic father of North 'Nori' West in all his youthful glory prior to making it in the big time.

The Yeezus rapper gives insight on his lesser known days as a producer for Jay Z, his hopes to drop his last name, as well as his roots in Chicago prior to hitting the jackpot.

Back in the day: An interview with Kanye West from 2002 has been unearthed by MTV and it shows the Yeezus rapper in all his glory prior to becoming a multi-award winning rapper and producer

In a never before seen video interview, Kanye is far from the fetching, stylish man he is today as he sits in a swivel chair wearing a somewhat dorky matching red cap and
hoodie.

The interview features a few rare uncensored moments of humanity where Kanye catches himself going on tangents and laughs shyly, before apologizing for wandering off topic.

At other points, he does a rap for the interviewers, then messes up and asks to start again, laughing, which is something the world sees a lot less now from the highly publicised artist.
Plenty have chuckled at, poked fun at and spoofed his bold proclamations of being a creative genius, but upon learning of his background as a third grade rap hopeful and a producer of some of the biggest hip hop albums in history, it doesn't seem quite as laughable.

The Watch The Throne rapper gives a detailed insight into his career's beginnings, as he chats about how he produced a serious chunk of Jay Z's award-winning album The Blueprint - including the infamous track Izzo and others such as Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City and Never Change. 

'Get used to this face' Kanye's FIRST interview with MTV

Less suave: The 36-year-old rapper can be seen in far less suave attire than he is known to wear today

'I was always rapping, and it just so happened that really really phenomenal rappers got to rap on my beats before I got a chance to, so that pushed me into the classification of a producer, but I'm a rapper from the heart. I've got something to say,' he said of his transition from producing for huge names in the industry, to rapping on his own and signing his own record deal.

Kanye talks about how he really started rapping 'in the third grade', pointing out that music has been all he's ever had the urge to do as a career since a young age.

Relaying his youthful enthusiasm for music, he spoke about when he first got a keyboard at 14 years old, saying: 'I found myself just wanting to work on that all the time. I found myself running home from school because I had an idea. Looking at the clock and it was only like 2:30, I was like 'I wanna get this beat down!''

So confident of his future success, he'd tell his seventh grade teachers that he wouldn't be coming to class the next year because he'd be signed to a record label by then.

Pre-Kim: Before he became engaged to a Kardashian, Kanye was fresh faced and youthful

'I just had the hunger,' he explained, speaking about what inspired him to pursue his music career, adding insight into why he fought for his own success, saying: 'My mother never raised me to ask for a handout.'

'You've gotta get in where you fit in, you might be somebody's guy and you end up being better than that person, or you might be an intern,' he mused. 'The question is, how do you get into this industry?'

And in a hopeful quip he'll now be able to tick off the list, he said: 'I feel like I've got a really good opportunity, and I'm not going to let them down,' in reference to Jay Z and others who gave him his chance.

Almost foreshadowing the BBC interview that had so many people frowning at his boldness, Kanye went into details about his big dreams of being unique and finding success with his uniqueness.

'I feel like my album, where I speak from, I feel like I'm gonna bridge the gap. Because I'm gonna talk from the perspective of just being honest.'

Throwing in a rap to illustrate his point, Kanye went on: 'Always said if I rap I'd say something significant. But now I'm talking about money, hoes and rims again.'

Before this: Kanye talks about his beginnings as a producer for Jay Z prior to rapping on his own beats

Foreshadowing how he'd deal with the haters - an obstacle he obviously has to face daily - he explained his intentions to take everything as a positive.

'I'm gonna use everything that everyone says I can't do, and I'm gonna flip it to a positive,' he declared. 'I look at everything as a glass half full.'

And he's not in it for the money, that much he was very interested in conveying to the MTV team, explaining that instead, he's using rap as a way to 'say some stuff that [he] thinks needs to be heard.'

But he was sure from the moment he walked into Sony Studios that he was going to be huge, and he told the executives as much: 'I told them, 'I'm gonna be bigger than Michael Jackson, I'm gonna be bigger than Jermaine Dupri!''

Kanye spoke about how he handled the daunting expectation of competing with hip hop greats such as Jay Z, stating that his plan of attack from the outset was to do his own thing.

'I can't talk about what he's talking about. Instead of trying to compete with him, let me find something that none of these rappers are touching on yet.'

And now: Kanye became engaged to Kim Kardashian last month after the pair welcomed their first child, a baby girl called North 'Nori' West

This, Kanye explained, was what resulted in tracks like Self Conscious which deals with issues of insecurity.

And his dreams, which he has now come a long way in achieving, were by no means small.

'I'm trying to get to the point where I can drop my last name off my name. I don't want to jinx myself, but I'm gonna take this opportunity,' he declared.

And in a quote that Kanye should be able to listen to today and dust his shoulders off with pride, he said in 2002: 'Hopefully I get radio, I pray that people love it, but this is for y'all!'

Kanye wasn't always the big suave man on campus, because the rapper and beats producer can be seen constantly throughout the video doing normal human things - his forte being rambling and saying 'um'.

'Did you see how I ended that one without going into another sentence and sh**?' He joked towards the end of the video, when he finally managed to be concise, in another nice human moment.

He's a daddy! The Yeezus rapper is now a father with a baby girl and will soon be married

How things change: Previously, Kanye was just producing beats for Jay Z and now he is rapping on his own