Good music label artists

Kanye West Presents GOOD Music (Kanye not pictured). Photograph: Dorothy Hong for the Guardian

In Brooklyn this summer, you didn't need a radio to hear Mercy, the mighty lead single from Kanye West's compilation album Cruel Summer. Sometimes it seemed that every car on every block was blasting the track out of its open windows. The rest of the album may not be quite as mighty, but the sum of its personnel certainly is.

"My crew deeper than the Wu-Tang, " raps Big Sean on Cruel Summer's Clique, and he's right. The GOOD Music collective, under whose banner Cruel Summer is released, includes the young Def Jam artist, but also rap veteran Common, Clipse's Pusha T, and the ubiquitous 2 Chainz. Sean's comparison is even made slightly absurd by the fact that, among a number of guests including R Kelly, John Legend and Jay-Z, Cruel Summer also features Wu-Tang legends Raekwon and Ghostface Killah themselves.

I've been invited to join the crew on the day of the album's release as they make their way around Manhattan. A crowd of fans has amassed outside CBS studios, where five of the young bloods and old masters are set to appear on the BET network's hip-hop video show, 106 & Park.

Kanye, however, is somewhere in Australia. Everyone knows that this is a Kanye record – essentially the follow up to his near-faultless My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – and his lovably douchey persona can distract from just what a formidably powerful force he is; a demiurge as absurd as he is talented. Throughout the day he is described variously by his colleagues as a "mastermind", a "genius" and "on another level". He overshadows all his collaborators, no matter how many they are or how famous. He's so big, in fact, that he needn't show up for the release of his own record.

My first appointment is with 2 Chainz in his suite of dressing rooms within the labyrinthine backstage corridors of CBS. The 36-year-old's career began in 1997 when he and fellow Georgian Earl "Dolla Boy" Conyers formed Playaz Circle. They hung with Ludacris, lost some momentum following Dolla Boy's incarceration in 2000, and went on to make two albums for Def Jam. More recently, 2 Chainz (real name Tauheed Epps) has been advancing his career with a series of mixtapes that showcase his laconic, often ribald style. Today I find him reclining on a giraffe-print chair, rendered near-horizontal by the sheer weight of his jewellery. He's wearing gold-encrusted, bug-eyed shades and I can't make out his eyes. "Jus' keepin' it real heavenly, " he drawls. When the photographer starts snapping he rolls his head in her direction and says, "I'd rather be taking pictures of your cute ass."

2 Chainz's fondness for female bottoms is well documented. The rapper – who, until a year ago, went by the name Tity Boi – had a US hit this summer with Birthday Song, whose hook is, "All I want for my birthday is a big booty ho". The track featured Kanye on several verses, and West's endorsement must have helped 2 Chainz's debut, Based On A TRU Story, enter at No 1 on the US Billboard chart last month. 2 Chainz, however, is not cool with this correlation.

"No, " he says testily. "A lot of it is down to the stuff that I do, the prayers in my heart, the sacrifice that I make. Kanye's a cool guy, but 2 Chainz works his ass off, OK?"

The conversation resumes for a moment. 2 Chainz chats a little about how good it is to hear his own voice on the radio. But then I venture a question about how Kanye went about bringing everyone together. The room goes silent. 2 Chainz says nothing. I say nothing. Then, glacially, 2 Chainz begins to rotate his head away from me until his gaze is level with that of a man who, both in terms of physical stature and human warmth, resembles a walk-in freezer. He slowly, slowly, shakes his head back at 2 Chainz.

Finally: "You say that again, love? Kanye definitely. You're interested in Kanye, I know that."

With that, he's summoned to the set. As he's sauntering away, I ask if there'll be another GOOD Music record.

"Not sure, baby. You probably have to ask Kanye."

'It's all about the vision 'Ye has for the song and what he thinks fits it. That perfection, it makes you grow' – Common

Common. Photograph: Dorothy Hong for the Guardian