It's just weeks before the forty-eighth annual Grammy Awards, and Kanye West is lounging in a well-appointed suite in Manhattan's swanky Mercer Hotel, now commonly referred to as the site where Russell Crowe, in a fit of rage, hurled a telephone at an unsuspecting employee. Far away from the fabulous chaos that is the downstairs lobby — Lindsay Lohan, Ben Kingsley and the designer Marc Jacobs are but a few of the boldfacers swirling about — West tucks into a dinner of roast chicken and squash soup. It doesn't take long for conversation to wind toward the eight Grammy nominations that his second album, Late Registration, has garnered. But before he begins cataloging the specific statues he'd like to see on his mantel, West takes a moment to reflect on how far he's come since he burst on the scene with his stellar debut, The College Dropout, in 2004.