The College Dropout

The College Dropout
Studio album by Kanye West
Released	February 10, 2004 (2004-02-10)
Recorded	1999–2003
Genre	Hip hop
Label	Roc-A-Fella, Island Def Jam
Producer	Kanye West
Professional reviews
Allmusic [1] Robert Christgau (A)[2] Entertainment Weekly (A-)[3] Los Angeles Times [4] New York Times (favorable)[5] Pitchfork Media (8.2/10)[6] PopMatters (favorable)[7] Rolling Stone [8] Stylus (A)[9] Village Voice (favorable)[10]
Kanye West chronology
The College Dropout (2004) Late Registration (2005)
Singles from The College Dropout
"Through the Wire" Released: September 30, 2003 "Slow Jamz" Released: December 2, 2003 "All Falls Down" Released: February 24, 2004 "Jesus Walks" Released: May 25, 2004 "The New Workout Plan" Released: August 31, 2004

The College Dropout is the debut album of American hip hop artist Kanye West, released February 10, 2004 on Roc-A-Fella Records. It was recorded over a period of four years, beginning in 1999.^[11] Prior to the album's release, West had worked on Jay-Z's The Blueprint (2001), which showcased his style of melodic and soulful hip hop production.^[12] Produced entirely by West, The College Dropout also features contributions from musicians such as Jay-Z, John Legend, Ervin "EP" Pope, Miri Ben-Ari, Syleena Johnson, and Ken Lewis. West's lyrics on the album concern topics that include family, religion, and materialism, while discarding the then-dominant gangster persona in hip hop.

Upon its release, The College Dropout became a massive commercial success, producing three top-ten singles and selling over 441,000 copies in its first week alone.^[13] The album has been widely considered a musical masterpiece, garnering "universal acclaim" by music critics, based on an aggregate score of 88/100 from Metacritic.^[14] At the 47th Grammy Awards in 2005, the album received a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album and a nomination for Album of the Year, and its single "Jesus Walks" won a Grammy for Best Rap Song. In its retrospective 2007 issue, XXL magazine awarded it a perfect "XXL" rating, which had previously been given to only sixteen other albums.^[15] As of July 2009^[update], it is West's best-selling album in the United States, with domestic sales of over 3.5 million copies.^[16]

Conception

Background

Kanye West was born in Atlanta, Georgia. At the age of three, West's parents divorced and he moved with his mother to Chicago, Illinois.^[17][18] West demonstrated an affinity for the arts at an early age; and his mother recalled that she first took notice of his passion for drawing and music when he was in the third grade.^[19] Growing up in the city, West became deeply involved in its hip hop scene. He started rapping in the third grade and began making beats in the seventh grade, eventually selling them to other artists.^[20] He crossed paths with producer/DJ No I.D., with whom he quickly formed a close friendship. No. I.D. soon became Kanye's mentor, and it was from him that West learned how to sample and program beats after he received his first sampler at the age of fifteen.^[21]

After graduating from West Aurora High School, West received a scholarship to attend Chicago's American Academy of Art and began taking painting classes, but shortly after transferred to Chicago State University to major in English. He continued making strides in his rapping and beat-making, and some of his earliest beats were sold to local underground rappers such as Gravity as well as major-label artists like Ma$e. However, it soon became apparent to West that his busy class schedule was a detriment with his work, and at the age of 20 he made the decision to drop out of college to pursue his dream of becoming a musician.^[22] This action greatly displeased his mother, who was a professor at the university that he withdrew from. She later commented, "It was drummed into my head that college is the ticket to a good life... but some career goals don't require college. For Kanye to make an album called College Dropout it was more about having the guts to embrace who you are, rather than following the path society has carved out for you."^[23]

West began his early production career in the mid-1990s, making beats primarily for burgeoning local artists, eventually developing a style that involved speeding up vocal samples from classic soul records. He came to achieve recognition and is often credited with revitalizing Jay-Z's career with his contributions on the rap mogul's classic and influential 2001 album The Blueprint. In addition to producing the hit lead single "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" and the introspective "Never Change", West was also responsible for supplying the beat to the diss track "Takeover", in which lyrical shots were fired at Nas and Prodigy. The Blueprint has been named by Rolling Stone as the 464th greatest album of all time.^[24] Serving as an in-house producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, West produced records for other Roc artists, including Beanie Sigel, Freeway, and Cam'ron. He also crafted hit songs for Ludacris, Alicia Keys, and Janet Jackson.

Despite his proven talent and success as a producer, West's true aspiration was to be a rapper. Though he had developed his emceeing skills long before he began producing, it was a challenge for West to be accepted as a rapper, and he struggled to attain a record deal.^[25] Multiple record companies pushed him aside because he did not portray the gangsta image prominent in mainstream hip hop.^[26] After a series of meetings with Capitol Records, West was ultimately denied an artist deal. According to Capitol Record's A&R, Joe "3H" Weinberger, he was approached by West and almost inked a deal with him, but another person in the company got in the ear of Capitol's president, saying, "He's just a producer/rapper. Those record won't do well. He'll never sell." and the deal was nullified.^[20] In a desperate attempt to keep their gifted producer from defecting to another label, then-label head Dame Dash reluctantly signed West to Roc-A-Fella Records. Jay-Z later admitted that Roc-A-Fella was initially reluctant to support West as a rapper, claiming that he, like many, saw him as a producer first and foremost, and that his background contrasted with that of his labelmates.^[26][27] West's breakthrough came a year later on October 23, 2002, when, while driving home from a California recording studio after working late, he fell asleep at the wheel and was involved in a near-fatal car crash. The crash left him with a shattered jaw, which had to be wired shut in reconstructive surgery. The accident inspired West; two weeks after being admitted to hospital, he recorded a song at the Record Plant Studios with his jaw still wired shut. The composition, "Through The Wire", went on to become West's breakthrough debut single and helped lay the foundation for his debut album.^[28]

Recording

The College Dropout was recorded at the The Record Plant in Los Angeles, California, but its beats were formed elsewhere over the course of several years. According to John Monopoly, West's friend, manager and business partner, the album "...[didn't have] a particular start date. He's been gathering beats for years. He was always producing with the intention of being a rapper. There's beats on the album he's been literally saving for himself for years." At one point, West hovered between making a portion of the beats in the studio and the majority within his own apartment in Newark, New Jersey.^[29] Because it was a two-bedroom apartment, West was able to set up a home studio in one of the rooms and his bedroom in the other.^[25] Carrying a Louis Vuitton backpack filled with old disks and demos to the studio and back, West crafted beats in less than fifteen minutes at a time. He recorded the remainder of the album in Los Angeles while recovering from the car accident. Once he had completed the album, it was leaked months before its release date. However, West decided to use the opportunity to make the album even better, and The College Dropout was significantly remixed, remastered, and revised before being released. As a result, certain tracks originally destined for the album were subsequently retracted, among them "Keep the Receipt" with Ol' Dirty Bastard and "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" with Consequence.^[30] West meticulously refined the production, adding string arrangements, gospel choirs, improved drum programming and new verses.^[25]

Music and lyrics

This section requires expansion.

The College Dropout discarded the then-dominant gangster persona in favor of more diverse, topical proponents.^[31] Throughout the album, West touches on a number of different life-related issues, including organized religion, family, sexuality, excessive materialism, and minimum-wage labor. In an interview conducted just before the album's release, West commented, "My persona is that I'm the regular person. Just think about whatever you've been through in the past week, and I have a song about that on my album."^[32]

"Never Let Me Down" uses a Jay-Z verse first heard in the remix of his song "Hovi Baby".^[33][34]

Singles

The album's first single and West's debut single, "Through the Wire", was inspired by his 2002 car accident and provides a comedic account of his difficult recovery.^[35] The chorus and instrumentals sample a "pitched up" version of Chaka Khan's 1985 single "Through the Fire".^[28] The single debuted at number ninety-four on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at number fifteen on February 3, 2004 for five weeks. It remained on the chart for twenty-one weeks.^[36] It performed better on the urban contemporary charts, reaching number eight on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and number four on the Hot Rap Tracks.^[37] In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number nine on the UK Singles Chart, where it peaked for two weeks, and exited the chart after nine weeks. The track charted lower in other European countries, reaching the top thirty in Ireland, Sweden, and the Netherlands; the top fifty in Belgium and Switzerland; and number sixty-one in Germany. Its maximum peak time in those countries lasted one week. The single entered the New Zealand Singles Chart at number twenty-four and peaked at number sixteen.^[36]

The second single, "Slow Jamz", is a tribute to classic smooth soul artists and slow jam songs. It previously appeared on rapper Twista's album Kamikaze (2003), and contains vocals from Twista, West, and Jamie Foxx.^[38] The single peaked at number one in the United States, becoming Twista's, West's, and Foxx's first number one hit. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, and Q listed it as the nineteenth greatest hip-hop song of all time.^[39] "All Falls Down" was released as the third single, and it entered the UK Singles Chart at number ten and peaked at number seven on the U.S. Hot 100. The song features singer Syleena Johnson and contains an interpolation of Lauryn Hill's "Mystery of Iniquity". Kanye originally attempted to acquire legal clearance to sample the recording, but permission was withheld.^[25] West called upon Johnson to re-sing a vocal portion of "Mystery of Iniquity", which ended up in the final mix.^[40] The song later appeared with the original sample on the mixtape Freshmen Adjustment.^[41][42]

The fourth single, "Jesus Walks", was originally written and recorded as a solo track for Chicago-based rapper Rhymefest. However, because he did not have a record deal at the time, he and West re-wrote the song for The College Dropout.^[43] "Jesus Walks" is built around a sample of "Walk With Me" as performed by the ARC Choir.^[38] Garry Mulholland of The Observer described it as a "towering inferno of martial beats, fathoms-deep chain gang backing chants, a defiant children's choir, gospel wails, and sizzling orchestral breaks."^[44] A spiritual trek, the first verse of the song is told through the eyes of a drug dealer seeking God, and it reportedly took over six months for West to draw inspiration for the second verse.^[45] The single earned widespread commercial success, peaking at number eleven in the United States and becoming West's fourth top twenty hit, while peaking at number sixteen in the UK.^[46][47] It was nominated for Grammy Award for Song of the Year, one of ten total Grammy nominations that West received for 2004.^[48] The fifth and final single, "The New Workout Plan", peaked at number fifty-nine on the U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart. The song contains violin by Miri Ben-Ari.^[38] The song's official remix was produced by Lil Jon and features guest appearances from Twista, Luke, and Fonzworth Bentley. The remix was later included on The College Dropout Video Anthology.^[49]

The planned sixth single was "Spaceship", featuring GLC and Consequence. This was confirmed in 2009 when GLC reported that a music video had been made for the song, but never released; the label decided to move on from the album to begin promoting West's second album, Late Registration.^[50] The music video was leaked in its entirety on May 6, 2009.^[51] At one time, "Two Words" (featuring Mos Def and Freeway) was also intended to be released as a single, and a video for the song was filmed.^[52]

Release and reception

This section requires expansion with: Commercial performance and criticial commentary from Metacritic.

The album was nominated for Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and won Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song for "Jesus Walks" in 2005. It was voted as the best album of the year by Rolling Stone magazine and in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll, was ranked #1 in Spin magazine's "40 Best Albums of the Year", and received a near-perfect 4.5 mic rating from The Source. Comedian Chris Rock has attested to listening to The College Dropout while writing his material.^[53] In 2005, Pitchfork Media named it #50 in their best albums of 2000–2004. In 2006, the album was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 best albums of all time.^[54] In its July 4, 2008 issue, Entertainment Weekly listed College Dropout as the fourth best album of the past 25 years.^[55]

Track listing

CD

• All tracks produced by Kanye West except "Last Call" co-produced by Evidence.

LP

Chart history

Album

Singles

Credits

• Executive Producers: Shawn Carter, Damon Dash, Kareem "Biggs" Burke
• Co-Executive Producers: G. Roberson, Kyambo "Hip Hop" Joshua, Kanye West, Michael Perretta
• A&R Direction: Hip Hop Since 1978, Patrick "Plain Pat" Reynolds
• A&R Coordinator: Shalik Berry, Ramses Francois, Darrin Asemota
• Direction of Joint Ventures: Darcell Lawrence
• Recording Administration: Tony Vanias
• Mastering: Eddy Schreyer
• Marketing for Hip Hop Since 1978: Al Branch
• Marketing for Roc-a-Fella Records: Girard Hunt, Osayamen Asemota
• Marketing for Def Jam: Shante Bacon
• Management: John Monopoly, Don C., Benny Medina, Andrei McQuillan
• Art Direction & Design: Eric Duvauchelle, Mike Godshall, Jim Morris, Stephanie Reynolds, Lauri Rowe
• Dropout Bear Logo Design: Bobby Naugle, Sam Hansen
• Costumes: O Share Stylez, Kanye West
• Legal Counsel: Alison K. Finley
• Business Affairs: Randy McMillan, Antoinette Trotman, Ian Allen
• Sample Clearance Agent: Eric Weissman

Notes

References

• Brown, Jake (2006). Kanye West in the Studio: Beats Down! Money Up! (2000-2006). Colossus Books. ISBN 0-9767735-6-2. 
• Hess, Mickey (2007). Icons of Hip Hop: an Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-33904-X. 
• West, Donda; Hunter, Karen (2007). Raising Kanye: Life Lessons from the Mother of a Hip-Hop Superstar. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 1-416-54470-4. 

External links

• The College Dropout at Discogs
• The College Dropout at Metacritic
• Album Review — By Vibe