In a sit down with MTV, Noah "40" Shebib praises Kanye West for changing the music landscape a couple times and notes him as a huge influence in his sound. He denies ever being in competition with him and then talks about using influences to make your sound as opposed to completely biting someone's style.
"You're supposed to be a hybrid. When you got T.I. and Nas and Jay-Z and Wayne and Kanye and Eminem, all these different types of rappers from different places and so on and so forth, I would expect a couple of years after that a new rapper comes out who incorporates all of those people. Because that's the evolution of it and that's what will always happen, so I don't even look at it as like biting or stealing or this or that"
[via MTV]
@A_Double_U January 11th, 2012 at 11:46 AM
I definitely agree with him. The problem arises when rappers/producers act as if a particular artist or producer didn't influence their sound ESPECIALLY when you can hear it all in their music.