The College Dropout 10 Years Later
When The College Dropout dropped, I was 13 years old and in 8th grade. Living in the suburbs at the time, there wasn't a lot for a young hip-hop head to really connect with. Ja Rule was rapping about the "thug life" with Ashanti and Irv Gotti, Ludacris was shouting for folks to "Get Back", T.I. had just hit the scene rapping about twenty-four inch rims and selling copious amount of drugs to make the dream work. Outside of Eminem, who at this point had entered the goofy days of Encore, there was little for me to relate to, and hip-hop began to feel out of touch. Rap had always been from the streets, but often had poetic sensibilities, easily interpreted by a cross-section of communities. We were in the midst of ringtone rap, until Kanye came along. Rap albums weren't considered among works of art in a larger spectrum, T.I.'s breakthrough album, Urban Legend was given a two out of five stars by Rolling Stone. Hip-hop had hit critical mass, it had jumped the shark, the Ying Yang Twins were serious players. I personally hadn't heard anything like "Slow Jamz" or "Through The Wire" in a long time. It was a hark back to the music my parents played growing up: a mix of soul and funk, all rolled together in Ye's signature sample chops. I remember watching MTV for hours in the days before YouTube to catch that collage video that was so Chicago, yet so different. I remember explaining Kanye to my Mom ('well he's a rapper, but he wears a backpack and talks about Chicago') I bought a hard copy of The College Dropout. There is a whole generation brewing right now that will never do that. I subsequently bought every Kanye album in hard copy until My Dark Twisted Fantasy. Kanye brought me back to hip-hop with The College Dropout, and likely shaped much of what I did after hearing it. It was the culmination of a sound that had been crafted by the likes of No I.D. and J Dilla, but which West was able to succinctly package together in one seminal piece of art. Chance The Rapper points a heavy finger Ye's way when influences come up, and he perhaps describes the feeling The College Dropout still evokes today with a line from his song "Tweakin" with Vic Mensa: "Bumpin' Kanye like it just came out". 10 year later, it's still good to that last clink of glass on "Last Call".
Statement from Kanye West on The College Dropout turning 10:
“Ten years ago today we finally released what had been my life’s work up to that point: The College Dropout.
I say “finally” because it was a long road, a constant struggle, and a true labor of love to not only convince my peers and the public that I could be an artist, but to actually get that art out for the world to hear.
I am extremely grateful to each and every person along that road who helped, lent an ear, lent their voice, gave of their heart to that project, and to all the projects that followed, and are to come.
I am honored and humbled by my fans, for the unwavering support and love over the past ten years. I wake up every day trying to give something back to you that you can rock to and be proud of.
Ten years later I am still the same kid from Chicago, still dreaming out loud, still banging on the door. The doors may be heavier, but I promise you WE WILL BREAK THEM.”
New 'Yeezus' Tour Dates Announced
Kanye's modern epic, better known as the 'Yeezus' tour will, in fact, make its way through Ye's hometown after all. After several dates were moved or pushed back due to technical issues and West and fiancee Kim Kardashian's engagement, the Chicago dates of the tour have been adjusted to December 17 & 18. The shows this weekend would have been interesting as it would have crossed paths of the Yeezus tour and Chance The Rapper's Social Experiment tour, which rolls through town this Saturday. With an unconfirmed special guest still under wraps, the smart money for that date was obvious. The new dates do coincide with the end of Chance's tour, so there's a . . . chance? Anyway, keep it posted to RH for continuing coverage and check out Kanye's site for more on rescheduled dates.
[Sunday Coffee Sipper] Kanye West: "Everything I Am Made Me Everything I'm Not"
Just as sure as September brings a chill to the air in Chicago, another Kanye West-induced pop culture drama has played out in the media, this one in the wake of his Twitter rant pointed at Jimmy Kimmel. He doubled his Twitter output in ten minutes, coming off childish and innocuous. It's become the norm for West, who has had a double major in music and media relations in the years since his dropout made him famous.
Since the passing of his mother Donda in 2008 and break up of his longtime relationship with fiancée Alexis Phifer soon after West has been strikingly different in his actions and music, beginning with his pilgrimage to Honolulu for three weeks while recuperating and crafting 808s and Heartbreaks. He left the mainland with a heavy heart and arrived back with an attitude and auto-tune. What followed was a cacophony of public relations missiles that would have derailed most any other career. In a story for Pitchfork this week, Ernest Baker noted that Kanye has been in the game, at the top of the game, for just nearly a decade. In that time his career has intertwined itself into our daily lexicon. Hurricane Katrina, Taylor Swift, the Kardashians: it all feels like a big charade. But, as West displayed this week, it's a charade he's willing to throw anyone under the bus for.
He named his first album College Dropout and used soul samples and clever hooks and bars to capture America and an entire generation that would grow up with seminal Kanye records every few years. College Dropout came out in 2004 as I was entering high school, figuring out what music was after binging on 2pac and Biggie for my middle school years. Graduation was released in September of 2007 as I was preparing for exactly what the title inferred. Standing in Union Park on Sunday at Pitchfork festival this year watching R. Kelly do what seemed like his entire discography, I felt as though each song represented a different grade, life experience, etc. West is certainly in the same rarefied air, although I'm still not sure I connect to Yeezus the same way as the rest of his body of work.
"Lock yourself in a room doin' 5 beats a day for 3 summers, that'sA Different World like Cree Summer's, I deserve to do these numbers/the kid that made that, deserves that Maybach." Listening to "Spaceship" now it's obvious that a young Kanye is predicting the future. He has had his eye on the throne on which he is currently perched for a long time. To him it was and is deserved and perhaps helps explain some of his erratic behavior over the years, a sense of entitlement that existed since the early days of 'Ye.
To be sure, it was the car accident that inspired the now-iconic "Through the Wire" track that gave the artist the kind of passion and drive that only near death experiences seem to provide. It's maybe why he feels the need to go bigger, feeling as though he cheated death. In his phone conversation with Kimmel the other day he allegedly referred to himself as 'Pac. 2pac, West is not, but a parallel can certainly be drawn between both artists actions after near-fatal experiences. Pac's surviving being shot five times, lead to the East/West rap feud and, ultimately, two caskets for the artists involved. In West's case the ability to cheat death has served as a launching board for everything that has come after. Where 'Pac pushed an agenda, talked militant, and ran with Suge Knight; Kanye rants at listening parties, fights paparazzi and dates a reality-TV star. In Ye's tweets to Kimmel he mentioned that Kimmel doesn't have to worry about people jumping over fences to take pictures of his daughter. Maybe not, but it's also a simple fact that those intrusions are a product of the life West has chosen for himself.
At the end of the day, none of this really matters to the subject of this article. Because, as he told us on Graduation, "Everything I'm not made me everything I am," the inverse may also prove to be true.