"Graduation" day nears for Kanye West

"You can't control if people are going to buy your music. At the end of the day you have to keep challenging yourself," Jay-Z says. "He has zero problem with that. He is never complacent. We mixed 'Stronger,' I'm not even joking with you, 17 times. He could not get the bass drum exactly the way he wanted it."

"The beauty of Kanye is his unpredictability," Reid adds. "You don't get to the cover of Time magazine by being fluffy. Real stars are on their path and they don't apologize. Jimi Hendrix threw his guitar down and set it on fire. He didn't think about 'Should I?' He just set his guitar on fire. The ones thinking about it too hard aren't real stars. That's manufactured."

West's creativity will have another chance to shine on the fall Glow in the Dark tour, on which he is collaborating with Madonna choreographer Jamie King. Dates have yet to be announced. In contrast to the poor touring track record for major hip-hop stars, West has been a consistent box-office draw: His 2005 tour with Fantasia and Keyshia Cole grossed $8.4 million and drew more than 210,000 people to 46 shows reported to Billboard Boxscore.

If West is feeling pressure, it is his own. His bosses, according to Jay-Z, "pretty much stay out of his way."

"I want everything associated with me to be the best and push the boundary of what you think is possible," West says. "Whether it's my music, my videos or my tour, I'm trying to be the best."