The College Dropout

Posted in Music by Elliott Back on January 21st, 2005.

Music Producer Kanye west turns a hit album with College Dropout. Not your usual rap piece about money, hos, and guns, Kanye explores life from the perspective from a college student. We don’t dare (02) is about living the gangster lifestyle to jumpstart a higher education, or just get along in life. All falls down, Spaceship, Jesus Walks, and Never let me down take a dive into serious waters, talking all about hard life on the street, trying to make it, being a black man in a white world, and strays into typical rapper lament. Still, the songs are well produced, and include guests like Jay-Z and Consequence.

Get ‘em high, The new workout plan, and Slow jamz jump back into club-fare. The guest stars don’t stop–we get Twista and Twalib Kweli. And we’ve always got Kanye’s beats, production, and slick rhymes. They’re not just normal rhymes and rapping: check out these snippets:

Yo Kwe, she don’t believe me, please pickup the line
She gon’ think that I’m lyin, just spit a couple of lines.

He rhymes line with lying with lines again, keeping 5 syllables a line in Get ‘em high. Then, in The new workout plan, he rhymes:

All the mocha lattes,
you gotta do Pilates.

In a song about getting girls, finding sexy bodies, this down to earth Starbucks pop reference is almost genius. Finally, since referencing Michael Jackson in your songs is almost passe, Kanye finds a new way to drop the name in Slow Jamz:

She got a light skinned friend–look like Michael Jackson.
Got a dark skinned friend–look like Michael Jackson.

The rest of the album includes cameos by the Harlem Boys Choir and Mos Def, more great production, and a huge hit song, Through the wire, a Snoop Dogg tribute about his rap history. While roughly half of the 21 songs are skits, the album as a whole is cohesive and well done. It’s the thing you can listen to straight through in one sitting without getting bored or annoyed. How many other rap albumns can you say that about? Snoop’s Rhythm & Gangster dies after the first two songs.

Go check it out