It was my first exposure to one of today's only world-scale rock stars. "Drug dealin' just to get by/Stack your money til it gets sky high." Well that's your run-of-the-mill rap chorus ... until you actually listen to the record and realize it's a children's choir singing it ...
But starting with this very first track on The College Dropout, Ye cemented himself as the quintessential everyman rapper (at least at that time). No big fame besides a few production plaques to his name (most notably Jay's "H to the Izzo! V to the Izzay!"), no national award performances, and no pressure to create an absolute classic. But he did anyway and achieved the fame and world renown very soon after!
Now I'mma straight admit that I pretty much sweat every single new Kanye leak from to-be album of the year, 808's & Heartbreak, even though it's not the cool thing for a rap fan to appreciate at the moment according to 94% of the blogs out there. I don't mind the autotune for a minute, maybe because it's personally blessed my less-than-stellar vocals as well. But let it be known, '04 era Kanye music is legendary. He changed music. So much so that he absolutely can't accept rehashing past classic material in subsequent releases. No matter what.
And this is just me flexing my supa rare exclusivity by actually purchasing the Dropout's initial music video DVD with a bonus of seven special edition tracks not on anything else. Who else got this?
Oh snap! I almost forgot about this song. I used to looooove it! I wish Kanye would go back to making songs like this instead of making damn love songs.
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