The project has been referred to as his first beat tape, and includes a few beats that ended up on official songs—"Beat 2" on the tape became Grav’s “City to City” off Down To Earthand “Beat 6” was later used on Infamous Syndicate’s 1999 song, “What You Do To Me.” And while the tape has been dated as being from 1997, it’s possible that it’s actually from a year or two earlier, since the Grav track was released commercially in 1996.

However, the biggest question is, “Where did this tape come from?” Genius reached out to EBay user rod-key who put the item up for bid to find out how he acquired the project. According to the seller, who collects rap demos, he purchased the tape on eBay around 2012 as part of a larger cassette lot.

Read more at https://genius.com/a/the-origin-story-of-kanye-west-s-1997-beat-tape