The College Dropout Review

The trick everyone copied was the sped-up soul sample, but the trick that actually mattered was tone. Mainstream rap in 2004 had a narrow band of acceptable feeling, and West walked in with a mouth full of wire and talked about student loans, retail jobs, his mother, his own vanity and his fear of dying broke. Jesus Walks is the swing for the fences, a marching drum and a choir and a subject nobody wanted on radio, and it worked anyway.

Through the Wire is the origin story sung in a voice that could barely open. All Falls Down is still the sharpest thing he has written about wanting things he knows are hollow. The record sags where the skits pile up and the back half runs long, and Last Call spends twelve minutes on a man explaining his own success at length, which is either the point or the flaw depending on the day. What holds is the warmth. Nothing else in his catalogue sounds this glad to exist.