(there is a lot written here)

(Posting date: Feb. 7, 2014)

For me, it wasn't so much the formative years as it was a mainstream rap album I REALLY liked (or at least listened to a LOT), and back then that's not really so easy to come by. For me at that time it was basically one a year (at the time I wouldn't call what Eminem was doing "mainstream" for example) - Blueprint, Lord Willin, Get Rich or Die Tryin', College Dropout - until 2005 when the tides started to shift and the big hit albums were more my style for a little bit. But College Dropout bridged that gap between what still sounded underground and exclusive in a mostly pre-internet, totally pre-Youtube era and what still made for really catchy, enjoyable, digestible pop music.

Kanye also cleared the way for rappers who were more blatantly being sold as comedians as much as wordsmiths. No one put their fists to their mouths and jumped up and down screaming "oooooooooh!" to "got a dark-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson / Got a light skin friend look like Michael Jackson" the way they did to the "god damn she fine but she party all the time!" antics of Jay-Z's "Girls, Girls, Girls", but we probably shouldn't have been so blind to Kanye's ability to deliver songs balancing that line between comical lark and social satire over and over again.

Thinking back on this album in the weekend leading up to its 10th anniversary (really Def Jam, no attempt to cash in with a huge retrospective box including mastered Good Ass Job mixtapes most Kanye fans probably haven't heard and what not? Can someone get me a line to their office?) it's most striking to me just how compelling the idea of it was. It's hard to remember now in a post-irony, post-Graduation world, but there was a time when pop rap was mostly really bad, gangsta rap was struggling to express itself from within the confines of the major studio system and underground rap was fractioning off into both boom bap purism and abstract dismantling of the form's very foundation. And them, you know, The Ummah or whatever.

College Dropout - and I think even at the time it felt capable of doing this - helped put an end to all that. You could put a song like "Jesus Walks" ten minutes ahead of "The New Workout Plan" and it could make sense. You could do drug dealer raps like "We Don't Care" and gather-round-the-dinner table testimonial like "Family Business" as album bookends and be confident the listener would feel like they were walking out the same door they came in. There had been good-to-great balancing acts in hip-hop before, but to my ears no one made that more palpable with a single release than Kanye with this here. To an awkward high school freshman who loved Black on Both Sides and Get Rich or Die Tryin' in near-equal measure, The College Dropout quickly became my everything.

Re-listening to it now (iTunes is registering 0 plays for all tracks, meaning I probably haven't listened to this album since May 22 2009 when I first scored it for the handbook) I can't help but realize how nostalgic this album was for me. Kanye's verse on "Get 'Em High" was one of my very first "I MUST learn this whole thing!" moments, and yes I already knew what 36 Chambers and The Blueprint sounded like. I wanted to know that verse. "Family Business" was the first beat that caught me flabbergasted by how pretty a hip-hop song can be, the way "I Got 5 on It" or "Ambitionz az a Ridah" taught me music can let its nuts hang as low as the gangsta-est rappers. I got to hear Ludacris and Mos Def on the same album, which at the time was all I ever wanted. Talib Kweli created an Okayplayer lurker and eventual addict out of me with a single line.

I could probably go on for another two or three paragraphs, about my memories for each individual song or how weird it seems to be listening to this album while looking at my old scores for it. Instead, I just want to say thanks to Kanye. And read this: Billboard: Kanye West's College Dropout - An Oral History.

(Posting date: May 22, 2009)

It's never been a secret that Kanye West is not a gifted rapper. If anything, he's a guy that has an ear for good music, and perhaps more importantly good hip-hop, and has used that ear to produce for and glean knowledge off of some of the best MCs in the world. After spending the better part of a decade behind the boards with occasional chorus or adlib duty, Kanye was ready to take his shine just as his mentor Jay-Z was ready to relinquish his own. The Roc was poised to deliver us...

Eventually, the Roc was poised to deliver us yet another larger than life, poster board celebrity figure to rap enjoyably and accessibly about the finer things over some of the most banging and innovative beats in the mainstream hip-hop industry. But in the beginning it wasn't about innovation or superstardom, it was about Kanye nearly dying in a car accident, loving his family get togethers, losing faith in long-standing institutions like education and employment, and remembering that no matter how phat the basslines get there's still nobody that's competing with Marvin, Anita or Luther on the vox.

In this context, Kanye's shortcomings lyrically are often entirely ignorable, fading away into the deeper framework of who Kanye West is. Rather than gimmicky Cam'ronisms or heady, half-baked DOOMpostering, Kanye's whacky brand of pop culture humor mostly ends up pointing fun at himself. Not that he was all fun and games, singles like "All Falls Down" and "Jesus Walks" carried for one brief moment the torch of meaningful hip-hop and videos almost single-handedly.

It's almost a shame that Kanye would continue to harness his worst traits to continue making good music. Before the stardom he was an entertaining guy but he was also thoughtful, and he wasn't afraid to let his guard down. Perhaps through all the egotism, there was a period where Kanye was afraid his success might never come, where he might have been lost in his room wondering if his talent was worth what he thought it was worth. Because this sort of album must be the result of an artist who urgently needs to have his voice heard. Considering the pressure he was under to become a success for his label, I'd say he did an admirable job becoming a success for himself.
The College Dropout (Produced by Kanye West unless noted)

1|Intro|0:19 3 - 3.75
2|We Don't Care|3:59 5
3|Graduation Day|1:22 3 - 3.5
4|All Falls Down (feat. Syleena Johnson)|3:43 5
5|I'll Fly Away|1:09 4 - 4.5
6|Spaceship (feat. GLC & Consequence)|5:24 4.5 - 5
7|Jesus Walks|3:13 4.75 - 5
8|Never Let Me Down (feat. Jay-Z & J. Ivy) |5:24 3.25 - 4
9|Get Em High (feat. Talib Kweli & Common)|4:49 4.75 - 5
Common is weird here, but the rest is great in my opinion. I have it memorized in fact.
10|Workout Plan|0:46 3 - 3.25
11|The New Workout Plan|5:22 4
Somehow, I've never noticed he mentioned juke music on a big, weird pop record in 2004 until just now, in 2014.
12|Slow Jamz (with Twista & Jamie Foxx)|5:16 5
13|Breathe in Breathe Out (feat. Ludacris)|4:06 (Produced by Kanye West & All Day) 4 - 4.25
14|School Spirit Skit 1|1:18 3
15|School Spirit|3:02 3.5 - 4
16|School Spirit Skit 2|0:43 3
17|Lil Jimmy Skit|0:53 3 - 3.25
By the end of this skit, a whole lot of momentum has been sacrificed. School Spirit is fun but why not just throw it on a mixtape and ditch the skits?
18|Two Words (feat. Mos Def, Freeway & The Harlem Boys Choir)|4:26 4 - 4.5
That bullshit he pulls at the end there is kind of an underrated moment of the album.
19|Through the Wire|3:41 5
20|Family Business|4:38 5
21|Last Call|12:40 (Produced by Kanye West, Evidence & Porse) 5

Overall: 86 - 88.5 4.15/5 82 - 84%: Great; repeated listens suggested; BUY IT

Original Overall (05/22/2009): 83 - 84.5 3.99/5 79 - 80%: Solid; few major reservations; TRY IT


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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz