A College Dropouts Commentary

Atticus Gregory Upton Lewis/Columnist

Kanye West is one of the most influential and controversial artists of the 21st Century. 

Without Kanye, you lose so much of what has made the last 25 years interesting. Through his innovations in production, he is arguably responsible for the creation of an entire sub-genre of rap. On the other hand, his outlandish behavior has led to him become someone with a mixed reputation at best. But, how did we get here?

“Late Registration” was Kanye’s second studio album, and despite it being fairly early in his career, you can see and feel how he was going to differentiate himself from the rest of the rap game. He chose this as he noticed many other rappers were taking his form of sampling in production, known as chipmunk soul, and decided to switch up his production style. He opted to focus on orchestral instrumentals, something not typically associated with rap, to place emphasis on his production style. After all, back then he was just known as, “that new dude who makes beats for Jay-Z.”

The lyrics themselves focus on America through the eyes of a young, black, college student reflecting on his life up to that point. This is where we also see his writing advance to tell an impactful story. Even the skits on the album contribute to the story. 

The first skit is a man telling Kanye he won’t be anything and the track immediately after that, “Heard Em Say,” goes into the societal problems of the time. The low minimum wage, the struggle with finding jobs, the  continuing AIDs epidemic in the black community, and noticing how manufactured and melancholy it all feels. 

The next track, “Touch The Sky,” takes the theme of reflecting on how far he has come since those times. 

Then comes the biggest hit off the album and the track that made Kanye a household name, “Gold Digger.” What I personally found interesting is how the song suddenly changes tone towards the woman on the track. He becomes far more sympathetic to her mentioning the things broke men put her through, so it makes sense for her to be a gold digger.

Then comes the next skit. This skit introduces a new theme to the skits going forward, where Kanye is joining a fraternity, Broke Phi Broke, where they take pride in being broke and having nothing. The skit even transitions from a bar about how there’s no point in driving or owning a car if you can’t even afford the gas, to the next two tracks about reflecting on his life when he was younger, specifically the car culture at the time and struggling to go home considering all the baggage. 

This leads us to the most conscious track on the album, “Crack Music.” In it he takes aim at Ronald Reagan and George Bush for smuggling drugs into the black community to prevent them from being able to advocate for themselves and succeed. He even compares their actions to a lynching and the culture is just swinging from the tree. He calls the product of this crack music. He’s basically saying, “If you don’t like black culture, why did you help create it?” 

“Roses” continues his criticism of America, this time of the institution of American healthcare. He criticizes how healthcare throws the poor and black under the bus to let them die. Later, in a different track, “Diamonds from Sierra Leone,” he criticizes the exploitation of the civil war in Sierra Leone to make more money from their diamond mines and cause more suffering. 

The last tracks on the album all focus on introspection. He goes as far as to regret making the choices he made to become as successful because it caused his mother to worry. On the track “Hey Mama,” the track that makes me the most emotional, he says he will repay everything she has done for him, she will never work again. 

It’s these tracks he is at his most vulnerable on the whole album. These last few tracks, at least for me, are an emotional drive by and your feelings will be pooling all over the pavement. 

Kanye West is many things. Artist, producer, influential, important, talented, and, probably the most important in his eyes, son. This album is one of his best works and is a personal favorite of mine. If nothing else, it is essential in understanding his story. It showcases his versatility and rise to the mainstream. He has the tracks that make you dance, that make you think, that make you angry, and the ones that make you cry all on one album. As early as his second album, he was showcasing what would make him a legend.