Those bars led to a contract with West’s GOOD Music label, which released a trio of mixtapes before issuing Big Sean’s debut in 2011. In 2005, he met Kanye West in a radio station parking lot in his Detroit hometown and got his shot: West agreed to listen to him freestyle 16 bars. Anderson started writing poetry as a kid in the ‘90s, and by high school, he was selling self-released CDs.
Big Sean’s persistence is as formidable as his sharp-witted lyricism, which rushes by, a mile a minute, in raw introspection and coy punchlines. On the eve of his 2017 release, I Decided., Big Sean told Apple Music something that might as well be his mantra: “Manifest what you want in the universe.” For the rapper born Sean Anderson, the laser focus on what he wanted to manifest-a rise to the top of the rap game through his own single-minded determination-fueled his journey from self-released mixtapes to multiplatinum success.
