Kanye West dreamed of being 'next Michael Jackson'

Washington, Feb 8 (ANI): Kanye West, who is renowned for his outspoken nature, once declared to a chairman at Sony Music he would be "the next Michael Jackson".

Even in his early days, the 34-year-old rapper was given to making outlandish statements.

"One day, we took Kanye to meet former Sony Music Chairman Donnie Ienner, and he danced around singing this song and saying, 'I'm gonna be the next Michael Jackson'," Contactmusic quoted Producer No I.D., who has worked with West since the start of his career as saying.

"To us, it was like, 'This is hip-hop! What are you talking about? Are you kidding me?

"When we met with former Columbia Records president Michael Mauldin he said 'I want to be better than Jermaine Dupri!' I'm like, 'Are you crazy? That's Jermaine's father! Why would you say that?

"A lot of silly things happened that day," he said.

No I.D., whose real name is Dion Wilson, said that the story came back around years later when Weat had become a star and actually had Michael phoning him up.

"Michael Jackson called him and asked him about his jacket that he wore in the video for 'Stronger'. I said, 'Oh my God! This dude got Michael Jackson calling him!" he told Complex.com.

"It was just the irony of it all. I was like, maybe this is this generation's 'that' guy- in the sense of Michael Jackson with the beaded jacket and the Billie Jean socks," he added. (ANI)