[24], The College Dropout diverged from the then-dominant gangster persona in hip hop in favor of more diverse, topical subjects for the lyrics. [135], With the album, West began to develop a following of listeners who could not relate to lyrics glorifying gangster lifestyle but still enjoyed rap music and connected more with his musings on family and love. He's been gathering beats for years. [11] The crash left him with a shattered jaw, which had to be wired shut in reconstructive surgery. Washington: American rapper and record producer Kanye West won his first gospel Grammy, for his `Jesus Is King` album. "We Don't Care" contains samples of "I Just Wanna Stop", written by Ross Vannelli and performed by The Jimmy Castor Bunch. (2007) by Consequence, A Kid Named Cudi (2008) by Kid Cudi, Asleep in the Bread Aisle (2009) by Asher Roth, Kendrick Lamar's self-titled first EP (2009), Camp (2011) by Childish Gambino, Cole World: The Sideline Story (2011) by J. Cole, When Fish Ride Bicycles (2011) by The Cool Kids, and Acid Rap (2013) by Chance the Rapper. "West then unveiled the artwork and title, Yeezus, of the album on his website. In the years leading up to release, West had received praise for his production work for rappers such as Jay-Z and Talib Kweli, but faced difficulty being accepted as an artist in his own right by figures in the music industry. Kanye West, The College Dropout", "NME: The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time : October 2013", "Consequence of Sound's Top 100 Albums Ever", "The 25 Greatest Hip-Hop Debut Albums of All Time", "The 50 Best Albums of the Decade (2000-2009)", "Amy, Beyonce, Kanye, made decade's best albums", "The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years (1985-2014)", "The 50 Best Hip-Hop Debut Albums Since 'Reasonable Doubt, "The Times – Best Album of the Decade 2000 – 2009", "The 100 best pop albums of the Noughties", "Usher Scores Five Nominations For NAACP Image Awards", "Thoughts on the tenth birthday of Kanye West's The College Dropout", "25 Greatest Chipmunk Soul Beats from the Roc-A-Fella Dynasty", "Kanye's Blueprint: 10 Albums Directly Influenced By 'College Dropout, "The Definitive Kanye West Album Rankings: A Roundtable", "Lescharts.com – Kanye West – The College Dropout", "Offiziellecharts.de – Kanye West – The College Dropout", "Norwegiancharts.com – Kanye West – The College Dropout", "Dutchcharts.nl – Kanye West – The College Dropout", "Irish-charts.com – Discography Kanye West", "Swedishcharts.com – Kanye West – The College Dropout", "Swisscharts.com – Kanye West – The College Dropout", "Kanye West Chart History (Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums)", "Kanye West Chart History (Top Catalog Albums)", "Kanye West Chart History (Vinyl Albums)", "2004 Year-End Charts – Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Albums", "Top 50 Global Best Selling Albums for 2004", "2005 Year-End Charts - Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Albums", "Billboard 200 Albums – Decade-end Chart", "Canadian album certifications – Kanye West – The College Dropout", "Danish album certifications – Kanye West – The College Dropout", "British album certifications – Kanye West – The College Dropout", Fame Kills: Starring Kanye West and Lady Gaga, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_College_Dropout&oldid=1015986040, Albums recorded at Record Plant (Los Angeles), Short description is different from Wikidata, Album articles lacking alt text for covers, Album chart usages for BillboardRandBHipHop, Certification Table Entry usages for Canada, Pages using certification Table Entry with shipments figures, Certification Table Entry usages for Denmark, Certification Table Entry usages of salesamount without salesref, Pages using certification Table Entry with streaming figures, Certification Table Entry usages for New Zealand, Certification Table Entry usages for United Kingdom, Certification Table Entry usages for United States, Pages using certification Table Entry with shipments footnote, Pages using certification Table Entry with streaming footnote, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz release group identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, The 25 Greatest Hip-Hop Debut Albums of All Time, The 50 Best Albums of the Decade (2000–2009), The 100 Greatest Debut Albums of All Time, The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years (1985–2014), The 50 Best Hip-Hop Debut Albums Since 'Reasonable Doubt', The Top 100 Albums of Clash's Lifetime (2004–2012). There's beats on the album he's been literally saving for himself for years". Updated: Mon, Mar 15, 2021. American rapper, musician and record producer Kanye West has released nine studio albums, two collaborative studio albums, one compilation album, two live albums, one video album and four mixtapes. [9] Desperate to keep West from defecting to another label, then-label head Damon Dash reluctantly signed West to Roc-A-Fella Records. [6] Record companies ignored him because he did not portray the gangsta image prominent in mainstream hip hop at the time. West has sold 21 million albums and 100 million digital downloads worldwide. [58] On the UK Albums Chart, the album peaked at number 12, and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) had certified it double platinum by November 25, 2004; this indicated shipments of 600,000 copies. [1] All nine of his studio albums have been certified at least gold in the United States. In the same discussion, music journalist Eric Sundermann cited The College Dropout as the first in West's pop rap album trilogy that would be followed by Late Registration in 2005 and Graduation in 2007, while Craig Jenkins called it "a watershed moment in 2000s rap history where the nerds stormed the school to seize control from the jocks, a shift memorialized two albums later when Graduation trounced 50 Cent's Curtis album in their 2007 sales showdown. [136] Music journalists such as Meaghan Garvey, Andrew Barber, and Erika Ramirez also connected to the album during their formative years, with Barber saying in a roundtable discussion for Noisey, "I could identify with this project the most because I was in college at the time, and I felt like an underdog in my own life. Weinstein also credited The College Dropout with directly influencing 10 albums: Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor (2006) by Lupe Fiasco, School Was My Hustle (2006) by Kidz in the Hall, Don't Quit Your Day Job! It avoided the usual plotlines about sex, money and violence and touched on everything from his faith to his fears of failure and other crises from his life. [62], Four of the singles released in promotion of the album became top-20 chart hits: "Through the Wire", "Slow Jamz", "All Falls Down" and "Jesus Walks". [85] Rhapsody named it the seventh best album of the decade and the fourth best hip hop album of the decade. Kanye 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. [25][26][27] 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". [96], —Aundre Larrow, Chicago Reader (2014)[129], The College Dropout sparked a resurgence of socially conscious rap in the mid 2000s,[130] arriving at a time when pop rap was saturated with songs featuring product placement and intensely violent lyrics, epitomized by rappers like 50 Cent, Nelly, Ja Rule, Ludacris, and P. [68], Some reviewers were more qualified in their praise. [89] In its retrospective 2007 issue, XXL named it one of the magazine's "XXL"-rated releases; this perfect rating had previously been given by the magazine to only sixteen other albums. [63] "The New Workout Plan" was the fifth and last single. He has dominated the hip hop and music scene over the 21st century, beginning with his debut in 2004. [48], The College Dropout was originally scheduled for release in August 2003, but West's perfectionist habits producing the album led to it being postponed three times. [1][2] The group released their first and only studio album World Record Holders in 1999. It was his first honour from the Recording Academy in eight years, and his 22nd career Grammy. "—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. Who is Kanye West? The triumph of the second album was tarnished somewhat by Kanye West's first major national controversy in September. The skit is followed by "We Don't Care" featuring West comically celebrating drug life with lines like "We wasn't supposed to make it past 25, joke's on you, we still alive" and then criticizing its influence amongst children. [74] In the opinion of Stylus Magazine's Josh Love, West "subverts cliches from both sides of the hip-hop divide" while "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". 1 on Billboard 200", "Pink Earns First No. [8][10], 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. But West’s main aspiration was to become a rapper and it was not until the year 2002 that he was given his first opportunity to record his solo album. Kanye Omari West, 21-time Grammy award-winning rapper and music producer, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 8, 1977. [35][40] The song features verses by spoken word performer J. Ivy who offers comments of upliftment. It was released on February 10, 2004, by Def Jam Recordings and Roc-A-Fella Records. I listened to it once to complete my journey of listening to every album from West, and have yet to revisit it. I remember listening to, (performed by Twista featuring Kanye West and Jamie Foxx), (featuring Mos Def, Freeway and The Harlem Boys Choir), (Extended version featuring Fonzworth Bentley), Recording Industry Association of America, (Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go, "500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #464 (The Blueprint)", "Road to the Grammys: The Making Of Kanye West's College Dropout", "Kanye West: The Man, the Music, and the Message.(Biography)". [43], "Through the Wire" features a high-pitched vocal sample of Chaka Khan and relates West's real life experience with being in a car accident. [56][57] On November 23, 2020, The College Dropout was certified four-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). [129] West instead created a space in the mainstream for rappers to express themselves and black identity without resorting to hip hop's prevalent theme of gang culture. [38] The first verse of the song is told through the eyes of a drug dealer seeking help from God, and it reportedly took over six months for West to draw inspiration for the second verse. [26] It was regarded by Pitchfork critic Rob Mitchum as a "flawed, overlong, hypocritical, egotistical, and altogether terrific album". [31][32], The album begins with a skit featuring a college professor asking West to deliver a graduation speech. [86][87], In 2005, Pitchfork named it No. RZA might have birthed chipmunk soul, and Black Star perfected smart lyricism for the JanSport bunch, but 'Ye brought all that to the masses in one single, digestible product, breaking down the divisions between mainstream rap and Rawkus-grade consciousness." 50 in their best albums of 2000–2004. Due to his association with D-Dot, West wasn't able to release a solo album, so he formed and became a member and producer of the Go-Getters, a late-1990s Chicago rap group composed of him, GLC, Timmy G, Really Doe, and Arrowstar. The album won in four out of the five rap categories, and West became the first solo artist to have his first three studio albums be nominated for Album of the Year. His catalog is so strong … [5] In August 2005, West released his second studio album Late Registration, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 860,000 copies. [25] Entertainment Weekly's Michael Endelman elaborated on West's avoidance of the then-dominant "gangsta" persona of hip hop: West delivers the goods with a disarming mix of confessional honesty and sarcastic humor, earnest idealism and big-pimping materialism. [2] As of November 2020, West has certified 24 million equivalent albums units in the United States,[3] placing him among the highest-certified music artists in the United States, West's debut album The College Dropout was released in February 2004, it debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200,[4] and was certified double-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in June 2004. I would much rather listen to any other Kanye album than Jesus Is King. [11] West's sixth studio album Yeezus was released in June 2013 and debuted at number one in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zeleand. [61] The album has sold over 4 million copies worldwide. The record was hailed by Kelefa Sanneh from The New York Times as "2004's first great hip-hop album". 2 spot less than a year after releasing his first gospel album, “Jesus Is King.” West brought in $170 million in 2019, making him the year’s highest-paid musician. He recorded the remainder of the album in Los Angeles while recovering from the car accident. [79] The album elsewhere topped year-end lists by Rolling Stone,[80] Spin,[81] Vibe,[82] and PopMatters. [8], In November 2010, West released his fifth studio album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with the fourth-highest ever digital first-week sales. Kanye's first big break arrives. The lyrics are mostly critical of the working world, where West muses about flying away in a spaceship to leave his boring job, and guest rappers GLC and Consequence add comparisons to modern day retail environment with slavery. For the article on dropping out of college, see, As a young black kid, especially one who got to walk the line between some dangerous environments and some much better ones, Kanye was this beautiful means to be true to both sides of me. Club, Nathan Rabin observed in the music "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". It has been an eventful two decades for West, who first became known as a producer, particularly for his work on Jay-Z’s 2001 album The Blueprint. [5][35] The song features singer Syleena Johnson and contains an interpolation of Lauryn Hill's "Mystery of Iniquity". Best of Kanye West: https://goo.gl/2FXUVWSubscribe here: https://goo.gl/AgJE59Music video by Kanye West performing Homecoming. [12], The Life of Pablo was released in February 2016, and made history by becoming the first album to top the Billboard 200 predominantly from streaming, while also having the second-highest total of first-week streams for an album. "[137], Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.[34][138]. After much delay Kanye has finally released his highly anticipated "gospel" album. The album was promoted with singles such as "Through the Wire", "Jesus Walks", "All Falls Down", and "Slow Jamz", the latter two of which peaked within the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Washington [US], March 15 (ANI): American rapper and record producer Kanye West won his first gospel Grammy, for his `Jesus Is King` album. He was the musical guest for Saturday Night Live on May 18, and performed "New Slaves" and "Black Skinhead. He next sold a beat for $5,000 to Jermaine Dupri for his debut album, Life in 1472. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart", "Official: Kanye West's 'Yeezus' Sells 327,000; Debuts at Number 1 on Billboard 200 Chart", "Kanye West scores Number 1 album with Yeezus", "Kanye West's 'Yeezus' Rises to No. [45], The album's title is in part a reference to West's decision to drop out of college to pursue his dream of becoming a musician. Washington [US], March 9 (ANI): Amid his divorce from the American reality TV star, Kim Kardashian, rapper Kanye West has started working on his next music album. West took a minimalist approach for the project, which was present in all of the songs and … Following multiple delays, West released his ninth studio album Jesus Is King in late-October 2019. In 2004, West's debut album The College Dropout produced four singles, including the Hot 100 top ten single "All Falls Down" and the Grammy Award-winner "Jesus Walks". Kanye West, Get Well Soon... (2003) – The 50 Best Rapper Mixtapes", Kanye West Raps Through His Broken Jaw, Lays Beats For Scarface, Ludacris, "Today in Hip Hop History: Kanye West Drops His 'College Dropout' LP 11 Years Ago", "Producer Kanye West's Debut LP Features Jay-Z, ODB, Mos Def", "The College Dropout is EW's Top Album of the Decade", "When Rap Lyrics Get Censored, Even on the Explicit Version", "The Making of Kanye West's "The College Dropout, "Kanye West – School Spirit (Uncensored Version)", "Tony Williams of G.O.O.D. View in App. Saint … He began his career in the early 2000s as a producer for the record label Roc-A-Fella Records, before releasing his first solo rap album ‘The College Dropout’ in 2004. [5] "Family Business" is a soulful tribute to the godbrother of Tarrey Torae, one of the many collaborators in the album. Then we did the 'I'll Fly Away' join". [55] By June 2014, the album had become West's best-selling album in the US, with domestic sales of 3,358,000 copies. According to Variety, though just for a moment, but it has made him the most awarded hip-hop performer in Grammy history. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 87, based on 25 reviews.[66].