{"id":20551,"date":"2016-06-08T09:14:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-08T13:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thatdope.com\/music\/heres-how-kanye-west-met-his-champions-squad\/"},"modified":"2016-06-08T09:14:00","modified_gmt":"2016-06-08T13:14:00","slug":"heres-how-kanye-west-met-his-champions-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thatdope.com\/music\/heres-how-kanye-west-met-his-champions-squad\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s How Kanye West Met His \u201cChampions\u201d Squad"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After the release of Cruel Summer<\/em> in 2012, there’s been rumors of a follow-up project. Cruel Winter<\/em> was not just hearsay either — Kanye, Q-Tip and Big Sean all at one point claimed its legitimacy and existence, and a trailer from ‘Ye and DONDA was even released (although Def Jam later denied its authenticity.) As time passed, it seemed apparent that the album was either scrapped or would never see the light of day…until last week. Pretty much out of nowhere, Kanye West visited Los Angeles\u2019 Real 92.3 to premiere the first single, “Champions,” from the resurrected forthcoming album. It’s not all-hype-and-no-quality either; the well-produced posse-cut features a very rare and unlikely combo of Quavo, Travis Scott, Gucci Mane, Big Sean, Desiigner, 2 Chainz & Yo Gotti.<\/p>\n

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In celebration of the single and in anticipation of what’s to come for Cruel Winter<\/em>, we’ve decided to revisit how Kanye West met each of his “Champion” features individually. Each of these artists linked up at ‘Ye at different points of his life. Some, like 2 Chainz, Gucci Mane and Yo Gotti, already had established careers when they met Yeezy while others, like Big Sean, Travi$ Scott and Desiigner, were essentially amateurs or relatively unknown up-and-comers at the time of the encounter. Regardless of how and when the came up, the thing that these guys all have in common is that they’re all irrefutable successful in their own ways. What also makes this track so impressive is that it’s an impromptu team effort; for example, Fonzworth Bentley linked a recently-released Gucci with Kanye after ‘Ye laid down his verse and Yo Gotti recorded his bars hours before the song was publicly released. <\/p>\n