slim7117's Full Review: The College Dropout [PA] by Kanye West
I remember back one day several years ago my friends and I were out skateboarding (something that I don’t do too often anymore) and we got onto the subject of rap music. One of my friends who generally hated rap, mentioned how awesome this one rapper named Kanye West was, especially his song ‘Jesus Walks’. I wasn’t really into rap at the time, but I stored away Kanye’s name into my memory bank in case I ever did get into it. Later that year on the first day of school, two kids walked by me rapping ‘Jesus Walks’ and at that moment I decided I needed to see what all of this fuss was about. I gave my friend a list of songs for him to download for me, and at the top of my list was ‘Jesus Walks’, followed by a lot of rock songs, and one or two other rap songs, as I had just begun to get into that sort of music. When I received the song I eagerly played it and at once I was hooked. To my inexperienced ears this man was a genius. Not only was he rapping about Jesus, a topic few other mainstream artists dared to rap about, he was doing it over a hot beat. Instantly, Kanye found his way onto my list of favorite rappers, which at that time included 50 Cent, Nelly, and Fat Joe. Over the next few years I gradually started listening to more and more rap, and one of the few rappers that retained their high spot on my list was Kanye. But the thing was, I had never really heard any of his songs other than his singles. As I continued to listen to more and more rap, I began to tire of the “ice, rims, money, and hoes” of many mainstream rap artists, and I started to immerse myself in the world of Underground and Old School rap. Still, Kanye managed to stay high on my list, due to that fact that most of his singles were intelligent, socially conscious pieces of work.
Eventually I got around to listening to his debut album ‘The College Dropout’. I eagerly pressed the play button on my CD player, expecting at any moment to hear him spit some witty intelligent lyrics, but what did I get instead: I got an ‘Intro’ in which some bizarre sounding man was telling Kanye to do something “for the kids”. Okay, whatever. As almost every rap album starts with a pointless intro, it didn’t bother me too much. But what I heard coming out of my headphones next did. The first actual song on the album, ‘We Don’t Care’ had Kanye rapping about drugs. Drugs?!? Kanye?!? Yes, unfortunately, the very same Kanye that wrote the song ‘Jesus Walks’ was rapping about one of the very things I was trying to steer clear of in rap, namely drugs. Now, don’t get me wrong, many socially conscious rappers make the occasional song about drugs. What had me worried was the fact that drugs were the first thing Kanye mentioned on his album. Obviously, I thought, they must be pretty high on his list of priorities. But since everybody makes mistakes, I continued on expecting a truly great song. And what did I get? I got a great song, of course. Well . . . at least after I skipped over another skit I got a great song, ‘All Falls Down’. Now, let me make something clear: I don’t have a problem with skits on albums, as long as they actually add to the album. And to tell you the truth, so far the skits were contributing to the albums apparent “college” theme. It’s just that they were disrupting the music, which was kind of annoying, but at this point, still no major problems with the album.
Up next: yet another skit. Whatever. I just skipped over it and moved on. ‘Spaceship’ followed, and I was in no way disappointed. A nice beat, and some great lyrics about Kanye assaulting his manager, you know, good clean family fun. Up next was ‘Jesus Walks’, a song I’d listened to numerous times before and still enjoyed. ‘Never Let Me Down’ followed, and it immediately became a favorite of mine. Now THIS was truly great stuff. Over a dope beat Kanye dropped a nice verse about his mother and Civil Rights, among other things. I enjoyed Kanye’s verse and the hook so much, I hardly even noticed when Jay-Z spit a whack guest verse that had nothing to do with the song’s actual subject. ‘Get Em High’ had a really clubbish beat that to my surprise I actually really enjoyed. Common and Talib Kweli had guest appearances, but they were really not all that great, which brought down the overall quality of the song. However, what really hurt the song the most was the wack subject matter.
Now throw you motherf*cking hands, GET EM HIGH, All the girls pass the weed to your motherf*cking man, GET EM HIGH, Now I ain’t never tell you to put down your hands, KEEP EM HIGH, And if you’re losing your high then smoke again, KEEP EM HIGH,
See, what was quickly becoming apparent was that Kanye West was not as socially conscious as I had originally thought. Sure, he wasn’t rapping about guns and violence, but instead he was rapping about sex and drugs. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with gangsta rap and I don’t have a problem with rap that isn’t necessarily socially conscious. It just kind of annoys me when I’m listening to an album expecting brilliant rhymes about the state of life, and instead I get dumb lyrics about selling drugs and getting high.
Also, another thing that I was really beginning to notice was Kanye’s shortcomings in the skill department. I had never really paid much attention to his skill before, because I had been paying more attention to his intelligent lyrics. However, now that I was listening to some of his songs that weren’t that great lyrically, his poor flow and sloppy rhymes became more noticeable. Also annoying was the fact that he had a bad habit of rhyming the same word at the end two lines, something that has always bothered me.
I continued on with the album, and up next was yet another skit. The ‘Workout Plan Skit’ was pretty humorous on the first listen, but every listen after that it just got dumber and dumber. ‘New Workout Plan’ was even dumber than the skit, although it had a pretty nice beat. In it, Mr. Socially Conscious himself raps about uplifting stuff like sex and drugs.
Give head, stop breathe, get up, check your weave, Don’t drop the blunt and disrespect the weed, Pick up your son and don’t disrespect your seed, It’s a party tonight and ooh she’s so excited, Tell me who’s invited: you, your friends, and my d!ck.
On ‘Slow Jams’ Kanye was joined by Twista to deliver a pretty average track. Then came ‘Breathe In, Breathe Out’ the worst track on the album, and one of the worst Kanye West songs period. I found it amusing that at the beginning of the song, Kanye made a comment about how this song was going to be “bullsh!t ice rap”. True to his word, the song was indeed bullsh!t ice rap. Kanye was joined on the song by Ludacris who delivered a drab lifeless hook. I could never figure out why Kanye would put a song he knew was bullsh!t on his CD. It just didn’t make sense to me.
After the debacle of ‘Breathe In, Breathe Out’ came ‘School Spirit Skit 1". Surprise surprise. Another skit. Now let me restate the fact that skits don’t bother me at all if they actually add to the album (a great example of this is Sticky Fingaz’ ‘Black Trash...’). However, on this album the skits were pointless and immature.
I soon found out that the skits weren’t the only pointless and immature tracks to be found on this album. School Spirit was a track taking shots at going to college. Come on Kanye, since when was going to college something to be made fun of. I have major respect for anyone who has the intelligence and work ethic to get a degree (I’m not trying to imply that I don’t respect those who don’t, because nothing would be further from the truth). I myself plan to go to college within the next few years, and it bothers me to think that somebody would make a song discouraging it.
After ‘School Spirit Skit 2' came ‘Lil’ Jimmy Skit’. Thankfully, the following song ‘Two Words’ was pretty good and made up for it. ‘Through The Wire’ was up next. Although it had a good concept, with Kanye rapping about the car accident he got into, the quality of the song was taken down a notch by the fact that Kanye was literally rapping with his mouth wired shut. I guess it’s kind of nice to be able to brag that you recorded a song with your mouth wired shut, but beyond that, it’s pretty pointless to sacrifice the quality of a song for the sake of a gimmick. The next song, ‘Family Business’ was one of the best songs on the album. Over a great beat, Kanye gives us several verses dedicated to his family, reminiscing over all of the great times that they’ve had. The album closed out with ‘Last Call’. The first several minutes find Kanye rapping, but the end of the song is basically Kanye just talking, as he tells us the story of how he got into the rap music industry. It was actually pretty interesting the first few times through, but over time, I got to the point where I just ended up skipping over it.
Track Listing:
1. Intro (N/A) 2. We Don’t Care (2 Stars) 3. Graduation Day (N/A) 4. All Falls Down (4 Stars) 5. I’ll Fly Away (N/A) 6. Spaceship (4 stars) 7. Jesus Walks (5 Stars) 8. Never Let Me Down (5 Stars) 9. Get Em High (3 Stars) 10. Workout Plan Skit (N/A) 11. New Workout Plan (2 Stars) 12. Slow Jams (3 Stars) 13. Breathe In, Breathe Out (1 Star) 14. School Spirit Skit 1 (N/A) 15. School Spirit (1 Star) 16. School Spirit Skit 2 (N/A) 17. Lil’ Jimmy Skit (N/A) 18. Two Words (4 Stars) 19. Through The Wire (3 Stars) 20. Family Business (5 Stars) 21. Last Call (4 Stars)
‘The College Dropout’ left me sorely disappointed. I had high expectations before listening to it. I had even made a comment to one of my friends about how Kanye West was the future of Hip Hop. The album just ended up proving my ignorance. It’s not terrible, mainly due to the production and several standout songs, but Kanye’s sloppy rhyming combined with some poor subject matter and filler tracks causes it to be one of the more disappointing albums I’ve listened to. If you like Kanye’s style, you’d be better off listening to 2007's ‘Graduation’, a CD that showed a lot of maturation on Kanye’s part. In my opinion, ‘The College Dropout’ is worth a few listens, due to some great tracks, but beyond that don’t expect too much.
Kanye West, the Chi-town producer/rapper who s crafted hits for Alicia Keys, Ludacris, Jay-Z, and Twista, centers his disc on a familiar rags-to-riche...More at Buy.com
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