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Welcome to a new edition of the Daily Music Picks newsletter!
Today’s music pick looks back at Kanye West’s debut, outsized ego and all, twenty years on.
Genre: Hip-Hop, R&B
Label: Def Jam
Release Date: February 10, 2004
Vibe: 😮💨
Whatever you think of the man on a personal (or, more accurately, a persona) level, there’s no denying the fact that Kanye West has created some of hip-hop’s most enduring tracks.
By the early 2000s, he’d already made a name for himself, masterminding instantly recognizable instrumentals for artists like Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, to name just a couple. But, with The College Dropout, West cemented himself as a top-tier talent by proving, among other things, that he could carry an album as a rapper as well as a producer. The outsized ego has always been a part of his brand—how else could you write and perform a cut like “Jesus Walks” with a straight face otherwise? At least then, it felt like a feature, not a bug. Combine the pleasantly surprising abilities behind the mic and his trademark brand of “chipmunk soul” seeping into every crack and crevice in the soundstage, and you have what is ultimately the most Kanye LP ever made.
Hits like “All Falls Down” and “Slow Jamz” were early showcases for West’s facility with warm, soulful crossover material. The former unfolds with a delicious sense of irony now, featuring lines like “The prettiest people do the ugliest things/For the road to riches and diamond rings” and “Things we buy to cover up what’s inside/’Cause they made us hate ourself and love they wealth.” It’s a lot to unpack in the face of West’s scandal-focused method of mythmaking. Speaking of which, you also have the underdog story that is “Through the Wire,” featuring the emcee famously rapping with a wired-shut jaw following a near-fatal car crash. It’s Exhibit A as to how strong production can save a track, with the dry, pedestrian writing elevated by that pitched-up Chaka Khan sample.
Those singles, two of which cracked the Billboard Hot 100’s Top 10, helped The College Dropout go 4x Platinum and kickstart a run of critically and commercially successful albums for West. Though likely requiring a strenuous separation of art and artist (it did for me, anyway), revisiting this one is still worth that commitment.
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