It seems like the tabloids, thinkpieces, & social media have had us talking about Kanye constantly since last summer. Apparently The College Dropout is having a chart resurgence thanks to the Netflix documentary jeen-yuhs. The timing seems convenient, but you'll just have to trust me that the album coming up on my list was 100% random. I'm tempted to write about this album in the context of Kanye's career up to now, but there are 2 problems with that: (1) I don't particularly want to write about 2022 Kanye, & (2) it has nothing to do with my experience of The College Dropout when it was new. So when I relistened, I tried to pretend it was 2004 again & as I write this I'll attempt to assess the album on its own terms. If the occasional comment about today's Kanye slips out, sorry not sorry.
As 2003 (the year I, myself, both started college & dropped out) melted into 2004, we were all excited about Kanye's upcoming album on the strength of the singles "Through the Wire" & "Slow Jamz." This guy didn't make beats, he made songs. These were no repetitive 3-minute MPC chops or MIDI loops with the occasional switchup; these were multi-part compositions--they rose & fell & lived & breathed but were still radio-ready & polished for mass consumption. As a rapper, Kanye embodied a certain humility & humanity that was missing from the mainstream--he didn't seem to feel entitled to the limelight, he was just glad to be there & wanted to remind you about what was important.
I can't remember an album in that era being quite so hotly anticipated, so of course I copped it on release day. From the very first song, "We Don't Care," you could tell our hopes were not misplaced. The Kanye hallmarks were there: chipmunk soul (a sped-up Jimmy Castor Bunch sample), choirs, handclaps, orchestrals, a layered composition that builds to an organ & electric guitar solo near the end. Lyrically, it addresses the plight of misunderstood hood kids making something from nothing, the abandonment by the powers that be that results in a life of crime looking attractive, & the determination to make it in spite of the deck being stacked against them. It feels weird to say it now, but Kanye was responsible for conscious rap being cool again for a few years in the mid-2000s. Even back then, I think we vaguely knew that Rhymefest, Consequence & a few others ghostwrote the majority of the lyrics, but Kanye still got credit for the concepts & his sincere delivery. "We Don't Care" is the perfect opening track because it lays out the themes, both musical & lyrical, that the rest of the album would develop. Defiance, self-reliance, working-class humility, big-picture thinking, & above all, sincere & all-encompassing love for Black people, their musical traditions, social conventions, & soul.
(I am trying so hard right now not to draw a comparison with modern-day Kanye here. Pray for me.)
Another element that shines through on "We Don't Care" is the gorgeous string arrangement by The College Dropout's secret weapon, Miri Ben-Ari. Kanye always chose his collaborators well, & Ben-Ari's violin arrangements add depth & harmonic complexity to the opener, "Graduation Day," "Jesus Walks," "Breathe In Breathe Out," "Two Words," & "The New Workout Plan," where her screeching, atonal strings are the saving grace of a song that's otherwise not very interesting lyrically or energetically.
Another blue-collar anthem & musical triumph is the bluesy "Spaceship," one of the first rap songs I ever heard in 3/4 time (after Gang Starr's "Stay Tuned"). I also believe this marks the first time I've done an album in the Optical Files series that samples another album in the Optical Files series ("Distant Lover" from Let's Get It On). This song is just so relatable for anybody who's ever worked in retail or the service industry in general.
I used to not understand why Kanye chose to end his album with a long, spoken rags-to-riches narrative at the end of the song "Last Call." I get it now. With the details he chooses to include (what people were wearing, minutiae of the reality of living on the margins), he paints a picture of the struggle not to brag, but rather to inspire the listener. If he can do it, so can you. This album is so consistently brilliant that I've barely even scratched the surface here, but I think that's the takeaway: Kanye, back then, was a regular guy with a conscience who believed in himself, & believed in you too.
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