Long before he was topping the charts with his G.O.O.D. Music clique, there was a time when Kanye West wasn’t recognized for his ability to rhyme. Now, in a recent interview with Vlad TV, one of Yeezy’s West coast collaborators Game recalled taking a L to the Chicago rapper early in his career.

Game recalled the time Kanye West beat him in a rap battle before either emcee struck it big in the industry. He said that the two met at a party that Nelly threw, and after the event wrapped up, they decided to engage in a friendly battle. Game added that he and ‘Ye went toe-to-toe for much of the battle, until Kanye pulled out all the stops in his final, battle-winning verse.

“Before The Documentary came out, Nelly had a party at Niketown, and everybody was there - Dr. Dre,Swizz [Beatz], Pharrell, a bunch of stars,” he recalled. “Me and Kanye were kinda rookies and what-not; Kanye was still servicing his beats around, I think he just had signed to Roc-a-Fella. So after the party was over, we’re walking to the parking structure, just walking [with] a bunch of chicks…and everybody was like, ‘Yo, Kanye, why don’t you battle Game? Game, why don’t battle Kanye?’ And we were just two hungry artists, so in the parking structure, [we] just took off. ‘Ye rapped first, and he spit and it was that old College Dropout Kanye, and he got off and he really did his thing.”

He continued, “I gave him probably about 40 bars, just rapping fire, and then he came and he spit like 40 bars. I took it up, and I ended up rapping for like three or four minutes…I felt like I won, and then Kanye, just out of nowhere, started going in about how I thought I was the ‘savior and watch my behavior’ – he just really started going in, and the chicks started being like, ‘Oooh, aah,’ and once the chicks start chiming in, it’s pretty much over.”

Check out the full interview below.