In 2007, Kanye West starred in a comedy pilot following a fictionalized version of his life that was modeled after Curb Your Enthusiasm. He even had longtime Curb/Seinfeld producer Larry Charles working on the show as a writer/producer alongside fellow producers Kanye West and Rick Rubin, but HBO opted not to pick it up. The pilot for the untitled series has gone unseen until this week, when this clip from the pilot, featuring Kanye West visiting a Make a Wish child, was discovered on YouTube. Here’s Charles talking about the show five years ago:
“What Kanye West said to me the first time, he said, ‘I’m the black Larry David.’ That’s the first thing he said to me. So it’s like a Kanye and Curb show, it’s kind of improvised about the situations and stuff. It was really good, but again I think it was too hardcore for HBO. Also, HBO’s management shifted, but HBO doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to black shows and I felt like that may have had something to do with it also. I don’t see a lot of shows about that experience at all. This was very entertaining and we showed it to a lot of people. People gave it a very good response and it seems to be on the shelf right now. The management has shifted at HBO so we’re waiting to see … he’s so much funnier than people realize. Even the whole being full of himself stuff is a joke to him and he likes to play that of being like, you know, Kanye. And he’s kind of a brilliant guy actually.â€
(via Vulture)