The College Dropout Elizabethtown KY

The College Dropout

Kanye West

Roc-A-Fella Records, 2004

REVIEW BY: Ben Ehrenreich

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 09/05/2006

The list of artists who are both extremely good lyricists and extremely good producers is very short. Even the talented Dr. Dre takes about seven years off between albums. It is very hard to do both well because of the time writing lyrics and making beats entails. It is extremely easy and common for an artist who is talented at one to slack off at the other.

Cue Kanye West. His resume as a producer to this point is impeccable. Kanye anchored two hip-hop classics, The Blueprint and The Fix, with his unique style of production, which means The College Dropout was likely going to be fun. Lyrically, I figured an artist releasing something on Roc-A-Fella Records would feature simplistic stereotypical gangsta rap lyrics, so I was expecting a mix between Memphis Bleek and Beanie Sigel. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I would have never guessed a Roc-A-Fella Records MC, besides Jay-Z, could produce an entire album full of conscious hip-hop. Not only is this one of the most charismatic albums I’ve ever heard, but it’s by far the most honest. On “All Falls Down,” West tackles the subject of self-consciousness with insight and charisma, which happens to be this album’s bread and butter. West is like a combination between Jay-Z and Mos Def; possessing an unlimited amount of flows in his arsenal like Jay-Z while keeping the witty and honest appeal of the mighty Mos Def.

His genius does not stop there but travels to the next song, “Spaceship,” which is the start of a killer four-track combo (“Spaceship,” “Jesus Walks,” “Never Let Me Down,” “Get Em’ High”) only to be beaten by the last four tracks (“Two Words,” “Through The Wire,” “Family Business” and “Last Call.”) “Spaceship” contains a humorous anecdote about Kanye’s work experience in a mall which he delivers with such magnetism that we actually enjoy hearing about him steal from his department store.