My first exposure to Kanye West came via a used CD store in Omaha. After seeing The College Dropout<\/i> top magazine polls in Rolling Stone, Spin and the Village Voice, I asked the store clerk if he heard it. \u201cIt\u2019s like The Chronic<\/i> of this decade,\u201d he said with a\u00a0stoned laugh. It\u2019s probably the only debut album by a superstar producer that could double as a convincing argument to your folks to skip college. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat major that she major in don\u2019t make no money \/ But she won\u2019t drop out, her parents look at her funny,\u201d opens \u201cAll Fall Down.\u201d In about four minutes, West legitimately questions the worthiness of shelling out $80,000 in tuition to eventually work at a job that may pay you $25,000 a year, but then goes on a rant decrying rampant materialism in youth culture. In one of the more amusing skits in The College Dropout,<\/i> a character soberly opens the skit stating his father died \u2026 and left him a ton of diplomas that are worth about as much as the heat they generate. Mom (who was chair of the English Department at Chicago State University) and Dad (a marriage counselor and former photojournalist) must have been feeling a mix of pride and resentment after hearing The College Dropout<\/i> front to back. <\/p>\n
Sound-wise, The College Dropout<\/i> is packed with West\u2019s trademark sound: a mixture of high-pitched soul samples and organic percussion. For better or worse, that sound staple helped make Jay-Z\u2019s \u201cIzzo (H.O.V.A.)\u201d THE inescapable song of 2001. It\u2019s not as original as some of the Wu-Tang-Clan\u2019s best work or as far-reaching and ambitious as Outkast\u2019s best moments, but it\u2019s enough to be original \u2026barely. The same goes for West\u2019s rapping ability. If it wasn\u2019t for his production skills and head-spinning lyrics, he would have a hard time establishing a definitive voice. <\/p>\n
Like Tupac, Kanye West is awash in contradictions. And on The College Dropout<\/i> is West\u2019s inner contradictions rattling your headphones and car speakers. While trying to be original and above reproach, West still stoops to some of the worst traits in modern rap: unfunny, unnecessary skits and a flood of guest vocalists. He can rap against materialism in \u201cAll Fall Down,\u201d but on \u201cBreathe In Breathe Out,\u201d he confesses \u201cIt\u2019s cool to rap about gold.\u201d <\/p>\n
West is upfront about these contradictions; half of the album is totally self-deprecating, the other half he\u2019s setting new standards for self-gloss. To West\u2019s credit, give The College Dropout<\/i> a few spins and it will likely win you over. \u201cSchool Spirit\u201d and \u201cSpaceship\u201d are about as hard to get out of your head as Geico commercials and \u201cThrough The Wire\u201d manages to rise above the \u201calmost died in a car accident\u201d melodrama that served as the inspiration for that song. <\/p>\n
West went on to be even more polarizing with the famous \u201cGeorge Bush doesn\u2019t care about black people\u201d rant during a Hurricane Katrina benefit to posing with a bloody crown of thorns in Rolling Stone<\/em>. Overhyped? Maybe. But few artists currently in the top ten are as compelling or can back up their talk on record. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":28467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7798],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-39918","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-kanye-west","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39918"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}