Entertainer of the Year: Kanye West

In the Polo store, West slips into a $700 wool-and-suede sweater. "Yo, don't buy that; you can have mine," says his perpetually texting co-manager, Don C. At a gallery up the block, West seriously considers a stunner from Warhol's Marilyn series. Price: $185,000. He's rocked, too, by Jules, an eerily familiar Robert Longo piece. "Is that the picture they used in American Psycho?! Damn!"

It's a rare few hours of relaxation in what has been a frantic week of globetrotting (a Spin photo shoot and Murakami opening in L.A. the night before, a concert in Dubai three days before that). Frantic will turn to tragic less than two weeks later, when West -- in London preparing for a series of U.K. shows -- will receive the devastating news that his 58-year-old mother, Donda West, has died, reportedly of complications from cosmetic surgery. Even casual fans know the story of Kanye's upbringing in his beloved Chicago under the care of his single-parent mom, a career academic whose dreams of success for her son got gently teased but ultimately fulfilled with the release of his three pointedly titled albums. Given the closeness of their relationship and the emotionally naked way in which West, an only child, lives every day and every thing, it's difficult to imagine how he'll get through -- except to become, well, stronger.

We talked backstage at the Garden before his world got turned upside down -- or, more accurately, when it was just a whirl of the usual Kanye-isms: enthusiasm and ambition, candor and combustibility, and a mix of bluster and uncertainty that makes him the award-show irritant most worth rooting for.

What's been your proudest accomplishment this year? The breadth of music on Graduation. It's my favorite album to date.

Why? I applied a lot of the things I learned on tour [in 2006] with U2 and the Rolling Stones, about songs that rock stadiums. And they worked!

Was touring with them a perspective-shifting experience? Life-changing. I thought, "Oh, this is the real thing."

How did playing to those crowds change your approach to making Graduation? I way simplified my rap style on this record. [Those crowds] were looking at me like, "I don't know what you're talking about."

By simplified, do you mean fewer words or leaner rhyme schemes? Everything. Fewer words. If you come in the room and say one thing, it better be the most powerful thing.

What else changed in your approach? Before, the music was more self-indulgent, and now it's more about everyone.

You're talking about the lyrics? I'm talking lyrics and chorus-wise -- giving them something to sing along with. Even a song like "Can't Tell Me Nothing," that's a rock chorus over straight ghetto drums.

So your goal was to make the choruses bigger? "Jesus Walks" is no slouch. And Late Registration was loaded with hooks. I wouldn't say loaded. "Gold Digger" was the biggest song on the record, and no other track had anywhere near the potential to be that big.

You made a conscious effort to shape Graduation for the next level of mainstream success? A conscious effort to take it to the next level in every form of success. More black people bought this album than any I've made.