It sounds like Rick Ross had a chill time in Hawaii when he was there in 2010 for Kanye West‘s storied My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy recording sessions. Ross details his experience working on the album in an excerpt from his new memoir Hurricanes published today by The FADER.
Ross reveals he’s an avid toy collector who discovered a “dope-ass toy store” and “bought mad shit” while exploring the island, claims he introduced Kanye to Pusha T during the trip, and reminds us of West’s wonderful studio rules during those sessions, including “NO HIPSTER HATS” and “NO ACOUSTIC GUITAR.”
But we’d like to direct your attention to one particular anecdote: that time Ross met Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and thought the indie singer was some random hippie engineer. The rapper smoked weed with Vernon and recorded his “Monster” vocals in a studio that Vernon had commandeered, but never asked Vernon’s name:
The next thing I knew I was in a closet with this cool bearded white brother getting ready to record. I’d seen this guy working out of this tiny room in the back. He’d been there since I got there … We ended up smoking a whole bunch of joints and kicking the shit while I laid down my little verse.
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This hippy motherfucker ended up being Justin Vernon of the band Bon Iver. But I didn’t find that out until later. During the time we spent working together I had no clue who he was and I didn’t think to ask. I had no doubt that anybody Kanye had flown down here was here for a good reason.
SPIN will henceforth refer to Vernon as either “this cool bearded white brother” or “this hippy motherfucker,” and we’d like to thank Ross for his contributions to our style guide.
Here’s the full excerpt. You can purchase Hurricanes here. Listen to a great song from this Hawaii adventure below.
