Kanye West, Jamie Foxx Take Spotlight

It's the final countdown to the Grammy Awards and one of the superstar moments will be when Kanye West and Jamie Foxx join forces to perform their hit song, "Gold Digger."

West goes into tonight's ceremony with eight nominations, including Album of the Year for "Late Registration" and Best Song for "Gold Digger," a collaboration with Foxx, who is also a Grammy nominee this year.

The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen is in Los Angeles, where she caught up with both of the stars as they prepare for their night in the spotlight.

West says the Grammys are a double opportunity, both to bring home the trophies and to get his message heard.

"The Grammys is the Super Bowl," he told Chen. "What is more important: to play or to be in the Super Bowl? You want to play in the Super Bowl. You want to sing where you can have the loudest voice."

Jamie Foxx has become a huge-selling singer himself. His album "Unpredictable" is perched at the top of the R&B charts and he's nominated for his performance of "Creepin' " on the Luther Vandross tribute CD.

And he's watching with awe as West climbs the ladder of success.

"I watch this young man, and we have private conversations about certain things, about his stratospheric rise to the top, and what I try to tell him to do is just have fun," Foxx said.

And West is certainly not short on ambition. Right now he's got his eye on the gold.

"I want to win Album of the Year," he told Chen. And if he doesn't? "Then you still can talk to me. But if I win, don't talk to me," he joked.West's trademark bravado has sometimes led to controversy, as with his remarks on a network special for Hurricane Katrina relief, when he said that President Bush doesn't care about black people.

Chen asked West about that comment and whether he has any regrets.

"I feel like it was a very emotional moment," he said. "I didn't give it that much thought. I spoke from my heart."

West's take on "The Passion of the Christ" on the cover of Rolling Stone also raised some eyebrows, though West explained that it wasn't what he'd had in mind.

"I wanted to reenact 'The Passion of the Christ' cover, and we wanted to do different leaders through time," West said. "So we did Jesus, we did Muhammad Ali, we did a civil rights leader in the middle of a riot, I'm holding a Molotov cocktail. But Rolling Stone, they didn't use that.

"So they put that out, e-mailed it to everybody, and put a quote about pornography right next to it. So let's juxtapose a quote about pornography with a picture of Jesus, and cha ching, ching, ching, ching.

"Exploit, exploit, exploit. And, you know, that's the problem I've always had."

For West, it always comes back to the music.

"The only thing that people really like about me is my art and my music and that's the only thing that, to a certain extent, I have a control over."

One piece of art that West has really taken control over is his upcoming music video, "Touch the Sky."

"Once again I reached into my pocket, I invested in myself," he said. "I think it's the best thing I've ever done. It's ultimate entertainment. It feels more like a mini-movie."

But no matter what else happens, Chen says to rest assured that this latest collaboration between Kanye West and Jamie Foxx will not be the last.

"The next album we're going to get back together, we're going to be the Batman and Robin again," Foxx joked. "We've done it three times. We're going to do it again. We're going to take over the world again. It's going to be more controversial, and I'm going to still be kicking it on the side."