The College Dropout
Encyclopedia
The College Dropout is the debut album
by 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. Prior to the album's release, West had worked on rapper Jay-Z
's The Blueprint (2001), which showcased his melodic and soulful
style of hip hop production
. Produced entirely by West, The College Dropout features musical contributions from Jay-Z, John Legend
, Ervin "EP" Pope, Miri Ben-Ari
, and Syleena Johnson
. Diverging from the then-dominant gangster persona
in hip hop, West's lyrics on the album concern themes of family, religion, self-consciousness, materialism, and personal struggles.
The album debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200
chart, selling 441,000 copies in its first week. It was a massive commercial success, producing five singles that achieved chart success. Upon its release, The College Dropout received general acclaim from music critics and earned West several accolades, including a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album
at the 47th Grammy Awards. It is West's best-selling album in the United States, with domestic sales of over 3.1 million copies and worldwide sales of over four million copies. Rolling Stone
named it the tenth-best album of the 2000s decade. In 2006, the album was named by Time
as one of the 100 best albums of all time.
. At the age of three, West's parents divorced and he moved with his mother to Chicago
, Illinois
. West demonstrated an affinity for the arts at an early age; his mother recalled that she first took notice of his passion for drawing and music when he was in the third grade. 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. 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.
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. This action greatly displeased his mother, who was a professor at the university from which he withdrew. 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."
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. Serving as 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. Multiple record companies pushed him aside because he did not portray the gangsta image prominent in mainstream hip hop. 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. In a desperate attempt to keep their gifted producer from defecting to another label, then-label head Damon 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. 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.
, 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
. 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. 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. West meticulously refined the production, adding string arrangements
, gospel choirs, improved drum programming and new verses.
, and personal struggles. Music journalist Kelefa Sanneh
wrote, "Throughout the album Mr. West taunts everyone who didn't believe in him: teachers, record executives, police officers, even his former boss at the Gap". 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."
, blow
, weed
, Pac
/ See: now we smart". He uses his casual voice to describe a world of dope and dyslexia, and when he raps, "Hold up, hold fast, we make mo' cash / Now tell my momma I belong in that slow class". His lyrics contain various popular culture references to the brand of jackets called Starters, rappers Really Doe
and Tupac Shakur and song 21 Questions
. The next track, "Graduation Day" features Miri Ben-Ari
on violin and is heavily auto-tuned to a point where the lyrics are nearly inaudible. On "All Falls Down
", the album's second single, he criticizes consumerism as an expression of self-hatred rooted in history "We shine because they hate us / Floss cause they degrade us / We tryin to buy back our 40 acres", and then implicates himself in the same process, all while examining self-consciousness in the context of his community: "Rollies and Pashas done drive me crazy / I can't even pronounce nothing, yo pass the Versace / Then I spent 400 bucks on this just to be like 'Nigga you ain't up on this'."
The gospel hymn "I’ll Fly Away
" leads into "Spaceship", a low-key funk track in which West wishes he could get away from the working world via a spaceship; in a collaboration with GLC
and Consequence
, he compares the legacy of slavery to modern-day corporate enslavement. "I’ll Fly Away" is sung in a doo-wop
style and uses a Marvin Gaye
sample. The main theme is the history of black music while also being a working man’s anthem. "Spaceship" also touches upon West's previous job as a Gap employee. On "Jesus Walks
" West proclaims his devotion to Jesus, and discusses the lack of religious themes touched upon in contemporary hip-hop. “I wanna talk to God but I’m afraid cause we ain't spoke in so long,” he confesses, but then he goes ahead and requests to push the song onto radio and push the divine into the heart of public dialogue. He also addresses the fact that gangsta rap is popular than conscious rap by saying that one could get airplay by releasing a song with themes of money, girls and guns but would not succeed if they released a song which praises Jesus. His near-death car crash last October supplied the motivation for "Never Let Me Down" and includes the following lines "I can't complain what the accident did to my left eye / Coz look what an accident did to Left-Eye". Jay-Z rhymes about attaining status and power, West one-ups him with a show-stopping attack on racism and meditation on death, and J. Ivy
offers words of spiritual upliftment. "Never Let Me Down" uses a Jay-Z verse first heard in the remix of his song "Hovi Baby
".
"Get Em High" is a collaboration by West with two socially conscious rappers, Talib Kweli
and Common
. The over-the-top "The New Workout Plan
" is both a hilarious parody of an aerobics routine and a platform for West to wrap his words around weird shifts in tempo and style. "Slow Jamz
" is a side-splitting ode to legends soul music that originally appeared on Twista
's Kamikaze
and features Jamie Foxx
. He considers the lure of materialism with Ludacris on "Breathe In Breathe Out" as he boldly declares "Always said if I rapped I’d say something significant / But here I am talking about money, hoes, and rims again". On the song "School Spirit", West relates the experience of dropping out of school and contains references to well-known fraternities, sororities, singer Norah Jones
, record label Roc-A-Fella Records. Also, all profanities on this song are distorted as Aretha Franklin
would not give West permission to sample Spirit in the Dark if the song included any profanities.
"Two Words" is a deafening mix of social critique and bragging with Mos Def
, Freeway, and the Harlem Boys Choir. Freeway plays the hit man and Mos the enlightened activist, while West hangs in the middle, sending out love to the gold-fronted and the Native Tongued alike. "Through the Wire" borrows a chorus from Chaka Khan
and a plotline from real life: in October 2002 West came close to dying in a car accident. With his jaw still wired shut he recorded the mush-mouthed lyrics. "My dogs couldn't tell if I / Would look like Tom Cruise
in Vanilla Sky
" he slurs, slipping into character as a wounded hero beating the odds. For about a year the song circulated on West's mixtapes and other unofficial releases. The song forges his dual status as underdog and champion. "Family Business" is a sweet, soulful tribute to an incarcerated family member. The album ends with a 12-minute autobiographical monologue that follows the song "Last Call".
and instrumental
s sample a "pitched up" version of Chaka Khan's 1985 single "Through the Fire". 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. 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
. 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.
The second single, "Slow Jamz", is a tribute to classic smooth soul
artists and slow jam
songs. It previously appeared on rapper Twista's 2003 album Kamikaze, and contains vocals from Twista, West, and Jamie Foxx. 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. "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. West called upon Johnson to re-sing a vocal portion of "Mystery of Iniquity", which ended up in the final mix. The song later appeared with the original sample on the mixtape Freshmen Adjustment.
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. "Jesus Walks" is built around a sample of "Walk With Me" as performed by the ARC Choir. 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." 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. 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. It was nominated for Grammy Award for Song of the Year
, one of ten total Grammy
nominations that West received for 2004. 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
. 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
.
The planned sixth single was "Spaceship", featuring rappers 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
. On June 3, 2009, West uploaded the video on his official blog. 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. West uploaded the video on his official blog in May 2009.
in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America
, following sales of 2 million copies. , The College Dropout is West's best-selling album in the United States, with domestic sales of over 3.1 million copies; it has sold over 4 million copies worldwide.
s. At Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
score of 87, based on 25 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times dubbed it "2004's first great hip-hop album". The A.V. Club
s Nathan Rabin praised its "substance, social commentary, righteous anger, ornery humanism, dark humor, and even Christianity", calling it "one of those wonderful crossover albums that appeal to a huge audience without sacrificing a shred of integrity". Jon Pareles
of Blender
gave it four out of five stars and commented that West "has his own personality: not a gangsta or a player but a diligent pragmatist". Chris Ryan of Spin
called West a "full-service hip-hop artiste", stating "As a producer, he shuttles back and forth between stuttering Southern bounce and graceful, elegiac, classic-soul tear-jerking; as a rapper, he’s got a sly sense of humor, an appealingly conversational tone, and a big heart". Ethan Brown of New York
commended West's "emotional brand of hip-hop" and stated "he makes autobiography universal in a way that hasn’t really been heard in hip-hop since the mid-nineties". Los Angeles Times
writer Soren Baker praised his "witty wordplay, ability to weave political statements into clever punchlines and his likable personality in the face of peril".
Josh Love of Stylus Magazine
wrote that West "subverts cliches from both sides of the hip-hop divide" and praised him for "trying to reflect the entire spectrum of hip-hop and black experience, looking for solace and salvation in the traditional safehouses of church and family, with the domestic utopia of ‘Family Business’ communicating the same kind of yearning as the heavenly pleas of ‘Jesus Walks’". Renee Graham of The Boston Globe
stated "West has certainly raised the bar on what mainstream hip-hop can and should be". Hua Hsu of The Village Voice
complimented West's life-related themes and his use of sped-up samples, stating "Kanye's beats carry a humble, human air. You can still hear tiny traces of actual people inside". In his consumer guide for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau
gave the album an A rating and stated, "Not only does [West] create a unique role model, that role model is dangerous--his arguments against education are as market-targeted as other rappers' arguments for thug life". Entertainment Weekly
s Michael Endelman called its production "uplifting" and commented on West's subject matter and avoidance of the then-dominant "gangsta" persona of hip hop, stating:
Rolling Stones Jon Caramanica commented that "West isn't quite MC enough to hold down the entire disc", but praised his soul-based sampling and vulnerable lyrics. Despite noting "too many guest artists, too many interludes, and just too many songs period", Slant Magazine
's Sal Cinquemani gave the album three-and-a-half out of five stars and complimented West's observations, stating "As chest-beatingly self-congratulatory as it may be, The College Dropout is at once laugh-out-loud funny ('The New Workout Plan'), genuinely touching ('Family Business'), and brutally honest ('All Falls Down')". Dave Heaton of PopMatters
called it "musically enganging", writing that "every single one of these songs comes off like a genuine extension of Kanye's personality and experiences". Vibes Dan Frosch gave it a four-out-of-five disc rating and found West's rapping to be on-par with his production. Joe Warminsky of The Washington Post
praised West's sampling and incorporation of live instrumentation, adding that "West shows a balance between patience and imagination". URB commented that it "manages to be both visceral and emotive, sprinkling the dancefloors with tears and sweat." Pitchfork Media
's Rob Mitchum called it a "flawed, overlong, hypocritical, egotistical, and altogether terrific album". Allmusic editor Andy Kellman gave the album five out of five stars and commented that it shows West as a "remarkably versatile lyricist and a valuable MC".
for "Jesus Walks" in 2005. It was voted as the best album of the year by Rolling Stone and in The Village Voices Pazz & Jop
critics poll. Spin ranked it number one on its list of 40 Best Albums of the Year. Comedian Chris Rock
has attested to listening to The College Dropout while writing his material. In 2005, Pitchfork Media named it #50 in their best albums of 2000–2004. In 2006, the album was named by Time
as one of the 100 best albums of all time. In its retrospective 2007 issue, XXL
awarded it a perfect "XXL" rating, which had previously been given to only sixteen other albums. In its July 4, 2008 issue, Entertainment Weekly
listed College Dropout as the fourth best album of the past 25 years. The magazine later listed the album as the best album of the decade. The magazine also ranked it number one on its list of 10 Best Albums of the Decade. Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "The 2004 debut from West—a revolutionarily relatable rapper who also happened to be a beatmaking genius—was accepted into the hip-hop canon instantly, no diploma needed." Newsweek
placed it among its Best Albums of the Decade list at number 3. Rhapsody
named it the seventh best album of the decade and the fourth best hip hop album of the decade. Rolling Stone ranked it number 10 on its list of the 100 Best Album of the Decade and stated, "Kanye expanded the musical and emotional language of hip-hop ... he challenged all the rules, dancing across boundaries others were too afraid to even acknowledge".
|-
! Country
! Provider
! Certification
|-
| Canada
| CRIA
| Platinum
|-
| New Zealand
| RIANZ
| Gold
|-
| United Kingdom
| BPI
| 2× Platinum
|-
| United States
| RIAA
| 2× Platinum
!align="left"|Song
!align="left"|Chart (2003)
!align="center"|Peak
position
|-
|align="left" rowspan="5"|"Slow Jamz"
|align="left"|U.S. Billboard
Hot 100
|align="center"|1
|-
|align="left"|Rhythmic Top 40
|align="center"|1
|-
|align="left"|Hot Rap Tracks
|align="center"|3
|-
|align="left"|Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks
|align="center"|1
|-
|align="left"|Top 40 Mainstream
|align="center"|2
|-
|align="left" rowspan="6"|"Through the Wire"
|align="left"|U.S. Billboard
Hot 100
|align="center"|15
|-
|align="left"|Rhythmic Top 40
|align="center"|10
|-
|align="left"|Hot Rap Tracks
|align="center"|4
|-
|align="left"|Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks
|align="center"|8
|-
|align="left"|Top 40 Mainstream
|align="center"|32
|-
|align="left"|Top 40 Tracks
|align="center"|25
|}
{| class="wikitable"
!align="left"|Song
!align="left"|Chart (2004)
!align="center"|Peak
position
|-
|align="left" rowspan="6"|"All Falls Down"
|align="left"|U.S. Billboard Hot 100
|align="center"|7
|-
|align="left"|Rhythmic Top 40
|align="center"|7
|-
|align="left"|Hot Rap Tracks
|align="center"|2
|-
|align="left"|Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks
|align="center"|4
|-
|align="left"|Top 40 Mainstream
|align="center"|22
|-
|align="left"|Top 40 Tracks
|align="center"|11
|-
|align="left" rowspan="4"|"Jesus Walks"
|align="left"|U.S. Billboard Hot 100
|align="center"|11
|-
|align="left"|Rhythmic Top 40
|align="center"|16
|-
|align="left"|Hot Rap Tracks
|align="center"|3
|-
|align="left"|Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks
|align="center"|2
|-
|align="left" rowspan="1"|"The New Workout Plan"
|align="left"|Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks
|align="center"|59
|}
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by American hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
artist Kanye West
Kanye West
Kanye Omari West is an American rapper, singer, and record producer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and...
, released February 10, 2004, on Roc-A-Fella Records
Roc-A-Fella Records
Roc-A-Fella Records is a record label founded by Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, Damon "Dame" Dash, and Kareem "Biggs" Burke. Today it operates as a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, and is distributed by Island Def Jam Motown Music Group.-Formation and Early Years:...
. It was recorded over a period of four years, beginning in 1999. Prior to the album's release, West had worked on rapper Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...
's The Blueprint (2001), which showcased his melodic and soulful
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
style of hip hop production
Hip hop production
Hip hop production is the creation of hip hop music. Though the term encompasses all aspects of hip hop music, it's most commonly used to refer to the instrumental, non-lyrical aspects of hip hop. This means that hip hop producers are the instrumentalists involved in a work...
. Produced entirely by West, The College Dropout features musical contributions from Jay-Z, John Legend
John Legend
John Roger Stephens , better known by his stage name John Legend, is an American singer, musician, and actor. He is the recipient of nine Grammy Awards, and in 2007, he received the special Starlight award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.Prior to the release of his debut album, Stephens' career...
, Ervin "EP" Pope, Miri Ben-Ari
Miri Ben-Ari
Miri Ben-Ari is an Israeli violinist, who currently resides in the United States.Ben-Ari grew up playing classical music; she started training at age 5 and at age 12, she was presented with a violin by Isaac Stern. During her mandatory Israeli military service, she was chosen to play for the...
, and Syleena Johnson
Syleena Johnson
Syleena Johnson is a Grammy award-nominated American R&B and soul singer-songwriter and actress.-Biography:...
. Diverging from the then-dominant gangster persona
Gangsta rap
Gangsta Rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that evolved from hardcore hip hop and purports to reflect urban crime and the violent lifestyles of inner-city youths. Lyrics in gangsta rap have varied from accurate reflections to fictionalized accounts. Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word...
in hip hop, West's lyrics on the album concern themes of family, religion, self-consciousness, materialism, and personal struggles.
The album debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart, selling 441,000 copies in its first week. It was a massive commercial success, producing five singles that achieved chart success. Upon its release, The College Dropout received general acclaim from music critics and earned West several accolades, including a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album
Grammy Award for Best Rap Album
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums with rapping at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...
at the 47th Grammy Awards. It is West's best-selling album in the United States, with domestic sales of over 3.1 million copies and worldwide sales of over four million copies. Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
named it the tenth-best album of the 2000s decade. In 2006, the album was named by Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
as one of the 100 best albums of all time.
Background
Kanye West was born in Atlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
. At the age of three, West's parents divorced and he moved with his mother to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. West demonstrated an affinity for the arts at an early age; his mother recalled that she first took notice of his passion for drawing and music when he was in the third grade. 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. He crossed paths with producer/DJ No I.D.
No I.D.
No I.D., officially known as Immenslope and also known as Ernest Wilson , is a hip hop and R&B record producer, also the vice-president of Def Jam Recordings, best known for his early work with Chicago rapper Common and is known as "The Godfather of Chicago hip hop".. The nickname 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
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
at the age of fifteen.
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
Chicago State University
Chicago State University is a state university of the U.S. state of Illinois, located in Chicago.-History:Cook County Normal School was founded in 1867, largely through the initiative of John F. Eberhart, the Commissioner of Schools for Cook County...
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
Mase
Mason Durell Betha , better known by stage name Mase who was previously known as Murda Ma$e, is an American rapper, songwriter, actor and inspirational speaker...
. 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. This action greatly displeased his mother, who was a professor at the university from which he withdrew. 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."
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.)
Izzo (H.O.V.A.)
"Izzo " is a single released by Jay-Z from his sixth album The Blueprint. It is among his most popular singles. This was the second song released off The Blueprint, after the diss track "Takeover", but the lead single from it. The song reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S...
" and the introspective "Never Change", West was also responsible for supplying the beat to the diss track
Diss track
A diss track or diss song is a song primarily intended to disparage or insult another person or group. While musical parodies and attacks have always existed, the trend became increasingly common in the hip hop genre as part of the hip hop rivalry phenomenon...
"Takeover
Takeover (song)
"Takeover" is a track recorded by Jay-Z for his 2001 album The Blueprint. The song is a diss track aimed at rappers Nas and Prodigy of Mobb Deep.-Background:...
", in which lyrical shots were fired at Nas
Nas
Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, who performs under the name Nas , formerly Nasty Nas, is an American rapper and actor. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in hip hop and one of the most skilled and influential rappers of all-time...
and Prodigy
Prodigy (rapper)
Lance Albert Johnson Banks, better known as Prodigy, is an American rapper and one half of the hip-hop and rap duo Mobb Deep....
. The Blueprint has been named by Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
as the 464th greatest album of all time. Serving as in-house producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, West produced records for other Roc artists, including Beanie Sigel
Beanie Sigel
Dwight Grant , also known as Beanie Sigel, is a American rapper from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,most recently he was in talks with 50 Cent to sign with G-Unit Records and is a former member/artist of Dame Dash Music Group and Roc-A-Fella Records where he had formed a close association with rappers...
, Freeway
Freeway (rapper)
Leslie Edward Pridgen , better known by his stage name Freeway, is an American rapper. Best known for his tenure on Roc-A-Fella Records and his affiliation with Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel, he is recognized by his high-pitched delivery and for the long beard he keeps due to his Muslim faith...
, and Cam'ron
Cam'ron
Cameron Giles , better known by his stage name Cam'ron or "Killa Cam", is a Grammy-nominated American actor. He is the founder of the hip-hop group The Diplomats , and also of The U.N. group....
. He also crafted hit songs for Ludacris
Ludacris
Christopher Brian Bridges , better known by his stage name Ludacris, is an American rapper and actor. Along with his manager, Chaka Zulu, Ludacris is the co-founder of Disturbing tha Peace, an imprint distributed by Def Jam Recordings...
, Alicia Keys
Alicia Keys
Alicia Augello Cook , better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. She was raised by a single mother in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City. At age seven, Keys began playing the piano...
, and Janet Jackson
Janet Jackson
Janet Damita Jo Jackson is an American recording artist and actress. Known for a series of sonically innovative, socially conscious and sexually provocative records, as well as elaborate stage shows, television and film roles, she has been a prominent figure in popular culture for over 25 years...
.
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. Multiple record companies pushed him aside because he did not portray the gangsta image prominent in mainstream hip hop. After a series of meetings with Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
, 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. In a desperate attempt to keep their gifted producer from defecting to another label, then-label head Damon Dash
Damon Dash
__NOINDEX__...
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. West's breakthrough came a year later on October 23, 2002, when, while driving home from a California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
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
Record Plant Studios
The Record Plant was a series of three famous recording studios which were founded by Gary Kellgren and Chris Stone, beginning in New York City in 1968. The next year, Kellgren and Stone opened a second studio in Los Angeles. In 1972, the company expanded again with a third location in Sausalito,...
with his jaw still wired shut. The composition, "Through The Wire
Through the Wire
"Through the Wire" is a hip hop song performed by rapper Kanye West from his debut album The College Dropout . Released in 2003 as the album's lead single, it peaked at number fifteen on the Billboard Hot 100...
", went on to become West's breakthrough debut single and helped lay the foundation for his debut album.
Recording
The College Dropout was recorded at The Record Plant in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, 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
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
. 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. Carrying a Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton Malletier – commonly referred to as Louis Vuitton , or shortened to LV – is a French fashion house founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label is well known for its LV monogram, which is featured on most products, ranging from luxury trunks and leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes,...
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
Ol' Dirty Bastard
Russell Tyrone Jones was an American rapper and occasional producer, who went by the stage name Ol' Dirty Bastard or simply ODB...
and "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" with Consequence. West meticulously refined the production, adding string arrangements
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
, gospel choirs, improved drum programming and new verses.
Lyrical themes
The College Dropout diverged from the then-dominant gangster persona in hip hop in favor of more diverse, topical proponents. Throughout the album, West touches on a number of different life-related issues, including organized religion, family, sexuality, excessive materialism, self-consciousness, minimum-wage labor, institutional prejudiceInstitutional racism
Institutional racism describes any kind of system of inequality based on race. It can occur in institutions such as public government bodies, private business corporations , and universities . The term was coined by Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael in the late 1960s...
, and personal struggles. Music journalist Kelefa Sanneh
Kelefa Sanneh
Kelefa T. Sanneh is an American journalist and music critic. From 2000 to 2008, he wrote for the New York Times, covering the rock 'n' roll, hip-hop, and pop music scenes...
wrote, "Throughout the album Mr. West taunts everyone who didn't believe in him: teachers, record executives, police officers, even his former boss at the Gap". 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."
Content
The album begins with a high school teacher asking Kanye West to deliver a graduation speech, "something for the kids", which introduces the second track, "We Don't Care" on the album with West celebrating drug life: "All my people that's drug dealing just to get by, stack your money till it gets sky-high / We wasn't supposed to make it past 25, joke's on you, we still alive" and then criticizing it's influence amongst children, "We scream: rocksCrack cocaine
Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock, hard, iron, cavvy, base, or just crack; it is the most addictive form of cocaine. Crack rocks offer a short but intense high to smokers...
, blow
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
, weed
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
, Pac
Tupac Shakur
Tupac Amaru Shakur , known by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor. Shakur has sold over 75 million albums worldwide as of 2007, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world...
/ See: now we smart". He uses his casual voice to describe a world of dope and dyslexia, and when he raps, "Hold up, hold fast, we make mo' cash / Now tell my momma I belong in that slow class". His lyrics contain various popular culture references to the brand of jackets called Starters, rappers Really Doe
Really Doe
Warren Trotter , better known as Really Doe, is an American rapper from Chicago, Illinois.- Career:Really Doe signed with Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music label in 2005...
and Tupac Shakur and song 21 Questions
21 Questions
"21 Questions" is a song performed by American rapper 50 Cent and Nate Dogg. The song was written by 50 Cent, K. Risto, J. Cameron, and V. Cameron for 50 Cent's commercial debut album Get Rich or Die Tryin . Released in 2003 as the album's second single, it became his second number one song in the...
. The next track, "Graduation Day" features Miri Ben-Ari
Miri Ben-Ari
Miri Ben-Ari is an Israeli violinist, who currently resides in the United States.Ben-Ari grew up playing classical music; she started training at age 5 and at age 12, she was presented with a violin by Isaac Stern. During her mandatory Israeli military service, she was chosen to play for the...
on violin and is heavily auto-tuned to a point where the lyrics are nearly inaudible. On "All Falls Down
All Falls Down
"All Falls Down" is a song by American hip hop artist Kanye West. It was released as the second single from his debut album, The College Dropout. The song was produced by West and features singer Syleena Johnson. It was released in February 2004 and entered the UK Singles Chart at number ten and...
", the album's second single, he criticizes consumerism as an expression of self-hatred rooted in history "We shine because they hate us / Floss cause they degrade us / We tryin to buy back our 40 acres", and then implicates himself in the same process, all while examining self-consciousness in the context of his community: "Rollies and Pashas done drive me crazy / I can't even pronounce nothing, yo pass the Versace / Then I spent 400 bucks on this just to be like 'Nigga you ain't up on this'."
The gospel hymn "I’ll Fly Away
I'll Fly Away (hymn)
"I'll Fly Away", is a hymn written in 1929 by Albert E. Brumley and published in 1932 by the Hartford Music company in a collection titled Wonderful Message...
" leads into "Spaceship", a low-key funk track in which West wishes he could get away from the working world via a spaceship; in a collaboration with GLC
GLC
GLC may refer to:* GLC * GLC * GLC * GLC , an American rapper signed to Kanye West's G.O.O.D...
and Consequence
Consequence
Consequence may refer to:* In logic, consequence relation, also known as logical consequence, or entailment* In operant conditioning, a result of some behavior...
, he compares the legacy of slavery to modern-day corporate enslavement. "I’ll Fly Away" is sung in a doo-wop
Doo-wop
The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
style and uses a Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....
sample. The main theme is the history of black music while also being a working man’s anthem. "Spaceship" also touches upon West's previous job as a Gap employee. On "Jesus Walks
Jesus Walks
"Jesus Walks" is a hip hop song by American rap artist Kanye West. It was released on May 25, 2004 as the third single from his debut album, The College Dropout. The song is built around a sample of "Walk with Me" as performed by the ARC Choir. "Jesus Walks" was well-received by music critics, who...
" West proclaims his devotion to Jesus, and discusses the lack of religious themes touched upon in contemporary hip-hop. “I wanna talk to God but I’m afraid cause we ain't spoke in so long,” he confesses, but then he goes ahead and requests to push the song onto radio and push the divine into the heart of public dialogue. He also addresses the fact that gangsta rap is popular than conscious rap by saying that one could get airplay by releasing a song with themes of money, girls and guns but would not succeed if they released a song which praises Jesus. His near-death car crash last October supplied the motivation for "Never Let Me Down" and includes the following lines "I can't complain what the accident did to my left eye / Coz look what an accident did to Left-Eye". Jay-Z rhymes about attaining status and power, West one-ups him with a show-stopping attack on racism and meditation on death, and J. Ivy
J. Ivy
J. Ivy is an American hip-hop poet who fuses spoken word poems with hip-hop music and syncopation styles. He is a three-time HBO Def Poet and has earned a Grammy Award for his performance on Kanye West’s debut album “College Dropout”. His full-length solo album, “Here I Am”, was released in late...
offers words of spiritual upliftment. "Never Let Me Down" uses a Jay-Z verse first heard in the remix of his song "Hovi Baby
Hovi Baby
"Hovi Baby" is a song by Jay-Z from his album The Blueprint2: The Gift & The Curse, released in 2002. The song is produced by Just Blaze and contains a sample of the live version of "Diggin' on You" by TLC. Additional vocals are provided by Christy Love....
".
"Get Em High" is a collaboration by West with two socially conscious rappers, Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli Greene , better known as Talib Kweli, is an American hip-hop artist and poet from Brooklyn, New York. His first name in Arabic means "student" or "seeker" ; his in Swahili means "true"...
and Common
Common
Common may refer to:* COMMON, the largest association of users of mid-range IBM computers* Common , a British Thoroughbred racehorse* Common , a part of certain Christian liturgy* Commoner, someone does not hold a title of peerage...
. The over-the-top "The New Workout Plan
The New Workout Plan
"The New Workout Plan" is the final single from Kanye West's debut album, The College Dropout. Released in late 2004, the single peaked at number fifty-nine on the U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart...
" is both a hilarious parody of an aerobics routine and a platform for West to wrap his words around weird shifts in tempo and style. "Slow Jamz
Slow Jamz
"Slow Jamz" is the Grammy-nominated first single from Twista's album Kamikaze and from Kanye West's debut album The College Dropout. Released in 2003, the single, which features Kanye West and Jamie Foxx peaked at number one in the USA for a week on February 10, 2004 becoming Twista's, West's and...
" is a side-splitting ode to legends soul music that originally appeared on Twista
Twista
Carl Terrell Mitchell , better known by his stage name Twista, is an American rapper. He is known for once holding the title of fastest rapper in the world according to Guinness World Records in 1992, being able to pronounce 598 syllables in 55 seconds...
's Kamikaze
Kamikaze
The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....
and features Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx
Eric Marlon Bishop , professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer-songwriter, stand-up comedian, and talk radio host. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a...
. He considers the lure of materialism with Ludacris on "Breathe In Breathe Out" as he boldly declares "Always said if I rapped I’d say something significant / But here I am talking about money, hoes, and rims again". On the song "School Spirit", West relates the experience of dropping out of school and contains references to well-known fraternities, sororities, singer Norah Jones
Norah Jones
Norah Jones is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress.In 2002, she launched her solo music career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album Come Away With Me, which was certified a diamond album in 2002, selling over 20 million copies...
, record label Roc-A-Fella Records. Also, all profanities on this song are distorted as Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
would not give West permission to sample Spirit in the Dark if the song included any profanities.
"Two Words" is a deafening mix of social critique and bragging with Mos Def
Mos Def
Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
, Freeway, and the Harlem Boys Choir. Freeway plays the hit man and Mos the enlightened activist, while West hangs in the middle, sending out love to the gold-fronted and the Native Tongued alike. "Through the Wire" borrows a chorus from Chaka Khan
Chaka Khan
Chaka Khan , frequently known as the Queen of Funk, is a 10-time Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter who gained fame in the 1970s as the frontwoman and focal point of the funk band Rufus. While still a member of the group in 1978, Khan embarked on a successful solo career...
and a plotline from real life: in October 2002 West came close to dying in a car accident. With his jaw still wired shut he recorded the mush-mouthed lyrics. "My dogs couldn't tell if I / Would look like Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
in Vanilla Sky
Vanilla Sky
Vanilla Sky is a 2001 American psychological thriller film directed, co-produced and co-written by Cameron Crowe. The film is an English-language remake of the 1997 Spanish movie Abre los ojos , the screenplay for which was written by Alejandro Amenábar and Mateo Gil...
" he slurs, slipping into character as a wounded hero beating the odds. For about a year the song circulated on West's mixtapes and other unofficial releases. The song forges his dual status as underdog and champion. "Family Business" is a sweet, soulful tribute to an incarcerated family member. The album ends with a 12-minute autobiographical monologue that follows the song "Last Call".
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. The chorusRefrain
A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...
and instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
s sample a "pitched up" version of Chaka Khan's 1985 single "Through the Fire". The single debuted at number ninety-four on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
and peaked at number fifteen on February 3, 2004 for five weeks. It remained on the chart for twenty-one weeks. It performed better on the urban contemporary
Urban contemporary
Urban contemporary is a music radio format. The term was coined by the late New York DJ Frankie Crocker in the mid 1970s. Urban contemporary radio stations feature a playlist made up entirely of hip hop/rap, contemporary R&B, pop, electronica such as dubstep and drum and bass and Caribbean music...
charts, reaching number eight on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and number four on the Hot Rap Tracks
Hot Rap Tracks
Rap Songs is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States. It lists the 25 most popular hip-hop/rap songs, calculated weekly by airplay on rhythmic and urban radio stations and sales in hip hop-focused or exclusive markets. From 1989 through 2001, it was based on how much the single...
. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number nine on the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
, 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
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
; the top fifty in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
; 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.
The second single, "Slow Jamz", is a tribute to classic smooth soul
Smooth soul
Smooth soul is a subgenre of soul music that developed in the early 1970s from soul, funk and pop music in the United States. The subgenre experienced mainstream success from the time of its development to the late 1970s, before its succession by disco and quiet storm.Smooth soul is characterized...
artists and slow jam
Slow jam
A slow jam an umbrella term for music with R&B and Soul influences. Slow jams are commonly R&B ballads or down tempo songs. The term is most commonly reserved for soft-sounding songs with heavily emotional or romantic lyrical content. This definition has led to intense debate over whether...
songs. It previously appeared on rapper Twista's 2003 album Kamikaze, and contains vocals from Twista, West, and Jamie Foxx. 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
Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
The Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration is an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality songs on which rappers and singers collaborate...
, and Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
listed it as the nineteenth greatest hip-hop song of all time. "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
Interpolation (music)
Interpolation in music refers to an abrupt change in musical elements from the main theme.-In classical music:In music and musical composition, especially 20th century and later, interpolation is an abrupt change of elements, with continuation of the first idea...
of Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Noelle Hill is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress.Early in her career, she established her reputation as a member of the Fugees. In 1998, she launched her solo career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album, The Miseducation of...
's "Mystery of Iniquity". Kanye originally attempted to acquire legal clearance to sample the recording, but permission was withheld. West called upon Johnson to re-sing a vocal portion of "Mystery of Iniquity", which ended up in the final mix. The song later appeared with the original sample on the mixtape Freshmen Adjustment.
The fourth single, "Jesus Walks", was originally written and recorded as a solo track for Chicago-based rapper Rhymefest
Rhymefest
Che Smith , known by the stage name of Rhymefest, is an American hip hop artist from Chicago, Illinois whose first official album, Blue Collar, was released on July 11, 2006. He co-wrote Kanye West's "Jesus Walks", which won a Grammy at the 47th Grammy Awards. In October, 2010, Rhymefest announced...
. However, because he did not have a record deal at the time, he and West re-wrote the song for The College Dropout. "Jesus Walks" is built around a sample of "Walk With Me" as performed by the ARC Choir. Garry Mulholland of The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
described it as a "towering inferno of martial beats, fathoms-deep chain gang
Chain gang
A chain gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work, such as mining or timber collecting, as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include building roads, digging ditches or chipping stone...
backing chants, a defiant children's choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
, gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
wails, and sizzling orchestral breaks." 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. 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. It was nominated for Grammy Award for Song of the Year
Grammy Award for Song of the Year
The Song of the Year is one of the four most prestigious awards in the Grammy Awards ceremony, if not in all of the American music industry. It has been awarded since 1959 and unlike the Record of the Year award, which goes to the performer and production team of a single song, Song of the Year...
, one of ten total Grammy
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
nominations that West received for 2004. 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
Miri Ben-Ari
Miri Ben-Ari is an Israeli violinist, who currently resides in the United States.Ben-Ari grew up playing classical music; she started training at age 5 and at age 12, she was presented with a violin by Isaac Stern. During her mandatory Israeli military service, she was chosen to play for the...
. The song's official remix was produced by Lil Jon
Lil Jon
Jonathan Mortimer Smith , better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American rapper, music producer, entrepreneur, and occasional disc jockey who was a member of the group Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz. Lil Jon formed the group in 1997, and the group released several albums between then and 2004...
and features guest appearances from Twista, Luke
Luther Campbell
Luther R. Campbell , also known as Luke Skyywalker, Uncle Luke or Luke, is a record label owner, rap performer , and actor...
, and Fonzworth Bentley
Fonzworth Bentley
Derrick Watkins, in Atlanta, Georgia and popularly known as Fonzworth Bentley or Farnsworth Bentley, is a musician and author. He is perhaps best known for being Sean Combs' former personal valet and assistant, as first seen in Making the Band 2, and is currently the host of MTV's From G's to Gents...
. The remix was later included on The College Dropout Video Anthology
The College Dropout Video Anthology
The College Dropout Video Anthology was a DVD released featuring the music videos to the singles from Kanye West's first studio album, The College Dropout, released on March 22, 2005...
.
The planned sixth single was "Spaceship", featuring rappers GLC and Consequence. This was confirmed in 2009 when GLC reported that a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
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
Late Registration
Late Registration is the second studio album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released August 30, 2005, on Roc-A-Fella Records. Recording sessions for the album took place over the course of a year at various recording studios located in New York City and Hollywood...
. On June 3, 2009, West uploaded the video on his official blog. At one time, "Two Words" (featuring Mos Def
Mos Def
Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
and Freeway) was also intended to be released as a single, and a video for the song was filmed. West uploaded the video on his official blog in May 2009.
Commercial performance
The album debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 441,000 copies in its first week. By April 2004, it had sold in excess of 1 million copies in the United States. On June 30, 2004, the album was certified double platinumRIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...
in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
, following sales of 2 million copies. , The College Dropout is West's best-selling album in the United States, with domestic sales of over 3.1 million copies; it has sold over 4 million copies worldwide.
Critical response
The College Dropout received general acclaim from music criticMusic criticism
See also Music journalism for reporting on classical and popular music in the media.The Oxford Companion to Music defines music criticism as 'the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres'. In this...
s. At Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 87, based on 25 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times dubbed it "2004's first great hip-hop album". The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
s Nathan Rabin praised its "substance, social commentary, righteous anger, ornery humanism, dark humor, and even Christianity", calling it "one of those wonderful crossover albums that appeal to a huge audience without sacrificing a shred of integrity". Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of the New York Times. He played jazz flute and piano, and graduated from Yale University with a degree in music. In the 1970s he was an associate editor of Crawdaddy!, and in the 1980s an associate...
of Blender
Blender (magazine)
Blender was an American music magazine that billed itself as "the ultimate guide to music and more". It was also known for sometimes steamy pictorials of celebrities....
gave it four out of five stars and commented that West "has his own personality: not a gangsta or a player but a diligent pragmatist". Chris Ryan of Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
called West a "full-service hip-hop artiste", stating "As a producer, he shuttles back and forth between stuttering Southern bounce and graceful, elegiac, classic-soul tear-jerking; as a rapper, he’s got a sly sense of humor, an appealingly conversational tone, and a big heart". Ethan Brown of New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
commended West's "emotional brand of hip-hop" and stated "he makes autobiography universal in a way that hasn’t really been heard in hip-hop since the mid-nineties". Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
writer Soren Baker praised his "witty wordplay, ability to weave political statements into clever punchlines and his likable personality in the face of peril".
Josh Love of Stylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine was an online music and film magazine launched in 2002. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, a number of different podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog....
wrote that West "subverts cliches from both sides of the hip-hop divide" and praised him for "trying to reflect the entire spectrum of hip-hop and black experience, looking for solace and salvation in the traditional safehouses of church and family, with the domestic utopia of ‘Family Business’ communicating the same kind of yearning as the heavenly pleas of ‘Jesus Walks’". Renee Graham of The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
stated "West has certainly raised the bar on what mainstream hip-hop can and should be". Hua Hsu of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
complimented West's life-related themes and his use of sped-up samples, stating "Kanye's beats carry a humble, human air. You can still hear tiny traces of actual people inside". In his consumer guide for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
gave the album an A rating and stated, "Not only does [West] create a unique role model, that role model is dangerous--his arguments against education are as market-targeted as other rappers' arguments for thug life". Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
s Michael Endelman called its production "uplifting" and commented on West's subject matter and avoidance of the then-dominant "gangsta" persona of hip hop, stating:
Rolling Stones Jon Caramanica commented that "West isn't quite MC enough to hold down the entire disc", but praised his soul-based sampling and vulnerable lyrics. Despite noting "too many guest artists, too many interludes, and just too many songs period", Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
's Sal Cinquemani gave the album three-and-a-half out of five stars and complimented West's observations, stating "As chest-beatingly self-congratulatory as it may be, The College Dropout is at once laugh-out-loud funny ('The New Workout Plan'), genuinely touching ('Family Business'), and brutally honest ('All Falls Down')". Dave Heaton of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
called it "musically enganging", writing that "every single one of these songs comes off like a genuine extension of Kanye's personality and experiences". Vibes Dan Frosch gave it a four-out-of-five disc rating and found West's rapping to be on-par with his production. Joe Warminsky of The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
praised West's sampling and incorporation of live instrumentation, adding that "West shows a balance between patience and imagination". URB commented that it "manages to be both visceral and emotive, sprinkling the dancefloors with tears and sweat." Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
's Rob Mitchum called it a "flawed, overlong, hypocritical, egotistical, and altogether terrific album". Allmusic editor Andy Kellman gave the album five out of five stars and commented that it shows West as a "remarkably versatile lyricist and a valuable MC".
Accolades
The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album and Best Rap SongGrammy Award for Best Rap Song
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Song was first awarded in 2004. It is a songwriting award given to all who wrote the lyrics and music of the song. Years reflect the year in which the Grammy Awards were presented, for works released in the previous year...
for "Jesus Walks" in 2005. It was voted as the best album of the year by Rolling Stone and in The Village Voices Pazz & Jop
Pazz & Jop
The Pazz & Jop critics' poll is a poll of music critics run by The Village Voice newspaper. It is compiled every year from the top ten lists of hundreds of music critics...
critics poll. Spin ranked it number one on its list of 40 Best Albums of the Year. Comedian Chris Rock
Chris Rock
Christopher Julius "Chris" Rock III is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer and director. He was voted in the US as the 5th greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central...
has attested to listening to The College Dropout while writing his material. In 2005, Pitchfork Media named it #50 in their best albums of 2000–2004. In 2006, the album was named by Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
as one of the 100 best albums of all time. In its retrospective 2007 issue, XXL
XXL (magazine)
XXL is a Hip-Hop magazine, published by Harris Publications.In 1997, XXL was founded by former Source staffers as well as other Harris Publication employees, who wanted to create their own magazine about the hip-hop music and culture using the model developed by the founders of The Source...
awarded it a perfect "XXL" rating, which had previously been given to only sixteen other albums. In its July 4, 2008 issue, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
listed College Dropout as the fourth best album of the past 25 years. The magazine later listed the album as the best album of the decade. The magazine also ranked it number one on its list of 10 Best Albums of the Decade. Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "The 2004 debut from West—a revolutionarily relatable rapper who also happened to be a beatmaking genius—was accepted into the hip-hop canon instantly, no diploma needed." Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
placed it among its Best Albums of the Decade list at number 3. Rhapsody
Rhapsody (online music service)
Rhapsody is an online music store subscription service, launched in December 2001, and available in the United States only. On April 6, 2010, Rhapsody officially declared its independence from RealNetworks. Downloaded files come with restrictions on their use, enforced by Helix, Rhapsody's version...
named it the seventh best album of the decade and the fourth best hip hop album of the decade. Rolling Stone ranked it number 10 on its list of the 100 Best Album of the Decade and stated, "Kanye expanded the musical and emotional language of hip-hop ... he challenged all the rules, dancing across boundaries others were too afraid to even acknowledge".
CD
(*) designates co-producer(**) designates additional producerLP
Personnel
Information taken from The College Dropout liner notes. Sample notes that aren't included in the CD booklet were taken from WhoSampled.com.| # | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| The College Dropout |
|
|
| 1 | "Intro" |
|
| 2 | "We Don't Care" |
|
| 3 | "Graduation Day" |
|
| 4 | "All Falls Down" |
|
| 5 | "I'll Fly Away" |
|
| 6 | "Spaceship" |
|
| 7 | "Jesus Walks" |
|
| 8 | "Never Let Me Down" |
|
| 9 | "Get Em High" |
|
| 10 | "Workout Plan" |
|
| 11 | "The New Workout Plan" |
|
| 12 | "Slow Jamz" |
|
| 13 | "Breathe In Breathe Out" |
|
| 14 | "School Spirit Skit 1" |
|
| 15 | "School Spirit" |
|
| 16 | "School Spirit Skit 2" |
|
| 17 | "Lil Jimmy Skit" |
|
| 18 | "Two Words" |
|
| 19 | "Through the Wire" |
|
| 20 | "Family Business" |
|
| 21 | "Last Call" |
|
Album
| Charts (2004) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| U.S. Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
2 |
| U.S. Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999... |
1 |
| U.S. Billboard Top Rap Albums Top Rap Albums Top Rap Albums is a record chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks Rap and hip-hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The chart began publication for the week of November 13, 2004.... |
1 |
| French Albums Chart | 98 |
| German Albums Chart | 77 |
| Swedish Albums Chart | 39 |
| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
12 |
Certifications
{| class="wikitable" border="1"|-
! Country
! Provider
! Certification
|-
| Canada
| CRIA
Canadian Recording Industry Association
Music Canada is a Toronto-based, non-profit trade organization that was founded 9 April 1963 to represent the interests of companies that record, artists, manufacture, production, promotion and distribution of music in Canada...
| Platinum
|-
| New Zealand
| RIANZ
Recording Industry Association of New Zealand
The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists who sell music in New Zealand...
| Gold
|-
| United Kingdom
| BPI
British Phonographic Industry
The British Phonographic Industry is the British record industry's trade association.-Structure:Its membership comprises hundreds of music companies including all four "major" record companies , associate members such as manufacturers and distributors, and hundreds of independent music companies...
| 2× Platinum
|-
| United States
| RIAA
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
| 2× Platinum
Singles
{| class="wikitable"!align="left"|Song
!align="left"|Chart (2003)
!align="center"|Peak
position
|-
|align="left" rowspan="5"|"Slow Jamz"
|align="left"|U.S. Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Hot 100
|align="center"|1
|-
|align="left"|Rhythmic Top 40
|align="center"|1
|-
|align="left"|Hot Rap Tracks
Hot Rap Tracks
Rap Songs is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States. It lists the 25 most popular hip-hop/rap songs, calculated weekly by airplay on rhythmic and urban radio stations and sales in hip hop-focused or exclusive markets. From 1989 through 2001, it was based on how much the single...
|align="center"|3
|-
|align="left"|Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks
|align="center"|1
|-
|align="left"|Top 40 Mainstream
|align="center"|2
|-
|align="left" rowspan="6"|"Through the Wire"
|align="left"|U.S. Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Hot 100
|align="center"|15
|-
|align="left"|Rhythmic Top 40
|align="center"|10
|-
|align="left"|Hot Rap Tracks
Hot Rap Tracks
Rap Songs is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States. It lists the 25 most popular hip-hop/rap songs, calculated weekly by airplay on rhythmic and urban radio stations and sales in hip hop-focused or exclusive markets. From 1989 through 2001, it was based on how much the single...
|align="center"|4
|-
|align="left"|Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks
|align="center"|8
|-
|align="left"|Top 40 Mainstream
|align="center"|32
|-
|align="left"|Top 40 Tracks
Top 40 Tracks
Top 40 Tracks is a defunct airplay chart from Billboard Magazine. It was created in 1998, when Billboard Magazine changed the airplay profile of The Hot 100 Airplay to include more R&B, Country, and Rock stations to its profile . To preserve the notion of the former chart, Top 40 Tracks was...
|align="center"|25
|}
{| class="wikitable"
!align="left"|Song
!align="left"|Chart (2004)
!align="center"|Peak
position
|-
|align="left" rowspan="6"|"All Falls Down"
|align="left"|U.S. Billboard Hot 100
|align="center"|7
|-
|align="left"|Rhythmic Top 40
|align="center"|7
|-
|align="left"|Hot Rap Tracks
|align="center"|2
|-
|align="left"|Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks
|align="center"|4
|-
|align="left"|Top 40 Mainstream
|align="center"|22
|-
|align="left"|Top 40 Tracks
|align="center"|11
|-
|align="left" rowspan="4"|"Jesus Walks"
|align="left"|U.S. Billboard Hot 100
|align="center"|11
|-
|align="left"|Rhythmic Top 40
|align="center"|16
|-
|align="left"|Hot Rap Tracks
|align="center"|3
|-
|align="left"|Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks
|align="center"|2
|-
|align="left" rowspan="1"|"The New Workout Plan"
|align="left"|Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks
|align="center"|59
|}
See also
- Kanye West discographyKanye West discographyThe following is a comprehensive listing of official releases by Kanye West, an American rapper, singer, and producer. He has released five studio albums, two DVDs, and twenty-nine singles on Roc-A-Fella Records . He has also sold over 11 million albums in the United States, over 15 million worldwide...
- Kanye West production discographyKanye West production discography- Grav - Down to Earth :* 03. World Domination 1* 05. Sick Thoughts* 06. City To City * 07. Thought It Was On* 08. Line For Line * 10. Keep Movin* 12. One Puff* 13. Down To Earth...
External links
- The College Dropout at DiscogsDiscogsDiscogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...
- The College Dropout at MetacriticMetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...