Tag Archives: the college dropout

#1438: Kanye West ft. Mos Def, Freeway & The Boys Choir of Harlem – Two Words

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One day, in either ’04 or ’05, all was quiet in my household. I was sitting on the floor. My sister, on the sofa. MTV Base, the channel of the network that focused on R&B and hip-hop and other things “urban”, was on the television. All very unassuming. I think it was, like, the middle of the day on a random weekend. Then, all of a sudden, a video started playing on the screen, and my sister burst out the loudest “Oh, my God!” She really screamed it. I can’t even remember how I responded, but I’m thinking I must have asked “What?”. I looked at the TV, and there in its first few seconds was the video for Kanye West’s ‘Two Words’. My sis had a physical copy of The College Dropout. I remember it being played out the computer speakers during those days. But it was songs like ‘Spaceship’ and ‘School Spirit’ that I recall hearing a lot more. ‘Two Words’ was a new one to me. Clearly, it wasn’t for my sister. The video played, uncensored, every “fuck that” in the song was clearly audible. Again, it was very much afternoon time. I’m very sure the video was never played again on the channel. Maybe someone got fired for the blunder.

So that was my first experience with the track. It’s a moment that stuck with me. Even when I properly got into The College Dropout myself in about 2008, I’d always see ‘Two Words’ as the one that made my sister go crazy for a brief moment years before. It is just a bit of a banger. It’s all about that five-note melody that plays throughout each artist’s verses, mirrored by the Boys Choir in the back. Just ties everything all together. Underneath that melody, I think Kanye West, Mos Def and Freeway are meant to be utilizing a concept of making verses out the groupings of two successive words. Mos Def is the most successful at it, “United States”, “Crack smoke”, “Black folks”, “Everybody, move!”, his verse starting the track off after West’s intro. West then follows, taking some liberties with the whole two words thing and throwing in some standard lines here and there. He says at one point, “I live by two words: ‘Fuck you, pay me'” which would make you think, “Surely that’s four words, no?” I think it’s more like “Fuck you” / “Pay me”. Makes sense that way. Freeway more or less does the same in terms of liberty taking. The way he delivers, “The heat skeet, blow a reef through your car, my God” usually makes me smirk a little. It’s how he says “my Goooood”, he really sells it. Such a dramatic-sounding hip-hop track, capped off with the Boys Choir in the back, who are singing “Through your hands up high / Till they reach the sky” in the choruses, something I only found out relatively recently.

Why did Kanye West make a video for this track? That time when I first saw it, it was like, “Oh, must be the new single then.” ‘Cause singles got music videos, that’s usually how the deal went. Seemed a bit dark as a single choice, and the censorship that it would have to go through to get played on the radio wouldn’t be fun. Kanye West must have had it all sorted. But it turned out it wasn’t lined up to be a single at all. A video was made for it just because it could be, with the three rappers filmed lip-syncing their respective verses in different places. In terms of the song, it’s monumental. ‘Two Words’ is another on the album to incorporate the chipmunk-style sampling which was West’s bread and butter in those days. This time round, it’s anchored via some chopped up sections from a song called ‘Peace and Love’ by American funk group Mandrill. I actually don’t think I knew that before. It also brings such a sudden change in mood with its placement on College Dropout, appearing after two skits included in the track list for comedic relief. When that opening “Ahhhh” jumps in, it’s time to get serious again. In another world, ‘Two Words’ probably closes this album out. But in this world, Kanye West just had that much good material that he had three other album closers to follow it.

#1369: Kanye West – Through the Wire

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I remember ‘Through the Wire’ being a single when it first came around in those halcyon days of 2003. Its music video was playing somewhere, and little notifications popped up covering how Kanye West was in a car accident where he almost died, but didn’t, and had to have his jaw wired shut. Whoever was running those notes made it very clear that he hadn’t passed away, he was very much alive. But eight-year-old me didn’t get the picture. Aaliyah had died a couple years earlier, and the video for ‘More Than a Woman’ came out posthumously. I don’t think I’d got over that and was convinced that ‘Through the Wire’ was that type of deal. But then 2004 came around, videos from The College Dropout were dropping for ‘All Falls Down’, ‘The New Workout Plan’ and others. I slowly but surely became convinced that Kanye West might not have actually died after all. My sister got The College Dropout, either as a gift or by her own actions, and there’s many a memory I have of hearing its music around the house during those days.

So, ‘Through the Wire’. What could I say about it that isn’t covered in its Wikipedia page, really? It was Kanye West’s debut single, properly introducing the world to the man if they hadn’t paid attention to the production credits he’d racked up to that point. It’s the song he initially recorded vocals for with his jaw wired shut while he was recovering from the near-fatal crash he experienced when he had fallen asleep at the wheel of his car. When the song first came around, I didn’t think his voice didn’t sound all that bad considering his situation. It turned out he had just re-recorded the vocal when his jaws were free again. The original recording shows how much he could really only mumble in the state his face was in. So, as he says, he was very much delivering his message through the wires. Plus, it heavily samples Chaka Khan’s ‘Through the Fire’, with Khan’s vocals pitched-up to the maximum, a standard in the “chipmunk soul” West brought to the mainstream during that period. Chaka Khan says she didn’t like what West did to her voice. She also performed her song live alongside him at the VMAs. Who knows how she feels? All I can tell you for certain is that I like it, if it wasn’t clear.

I listened to this song again yesterday, just to gear myself up and gain some thoughts on what I wanted to write. I only just realised that at about 1:40 in the song, whoever’s playing the bass guitar plays a bum note before carrying on. It’s hard not to notice it now. But that miniscule detail can’t detract from the overall result. ‘Through the Wire’ is a classic tale of the phoenix rising from the ashes, with West humorously recounting his experiences of the crash, the aftermath and his experience in the hospital. “The doctor said I had blood clots / But I ain’t Jamaican, man”. I’ve always liked that lyric. It’s simple, but it does the job. I could go through the track line-by-line, but there’s no fun in that. And there are websites available for that purpose anyway. Generally, it’s a track like this that makes me miss how Kanye West used to be. He poked fun at that kind of sentiment in 2016. But in these times, it rings truer than ever. The Life of Pablo was his last album, though, wasn’t it? Can’t remember him releasing anything else afterwards.

#1257: Kanye West ft. GLC & Consequence – Spaceship

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‘Spaceship’ is another song from Kanye West’s The College Dropout that I found myself having to listen to on a frequent basis back in ’04. It’s a story I’ve told in a few of the other songs from the album here: My sister got the album as a present, she played it on the computer, my computer had these nice but unnecessary speakers my uncle set up. The song played; I’d be lying around somewhere nearby. And I think my sister would spontaneously start singing the chorus at random points too. So she was a fan. Big into The College Dropout. Me, it took a few years to catch up. I was well in my long-lasting rock phase. Back in 2004, I was probably listening to The Darkness or something. That was a good year to be a fan of that band.

I caught up, though and got to appreciate ‘Spaceship’ for the song it was/is, which is one listing the struggles of the three performing artists who were sick of working in their dead-end jobs and looking for any kind of escape that would help them to achieve the great things they know their destined for. In the first verse, West details his less-than-pleasant experiences from working at the mall, his disdain for the manager, and his self-belief that the work he was putting into his beat-making would save him in due time. GLC makes clear his own conflict about having to portray a clean-cut image for his peers while also being a man in the streets who usually has to carry a piece for his own protection. Consequence tells a story of one of his co-workers seeing but not recognizing him in a Busta Rhymes music video, and makes note that however soul-sucking his job might be, he’s putting in the grind until things truly take off for him. All of this over a beat made via chopping up Marvin Gaye’s track, ‘Distant Lover’. A hypnotizing bass line, I could listen to that by itself all day.

The track was very, very close to being a single from The College Dropout. Had a music video made for it and everything. But by the time it was to have been released, West was well underway working on what was to be his second album. So plans were shelved. He also didn’t like the video all that much. The general public didn’t know about its existence until 2009, when GLC posted it on his blog. And in 2020, West posted it on his website to commemorate the announce of his fashion brand’s partnership deal with The Gap. He’d made his peace with the video at that point. In another world, with a ‘single’ status, I guess a lot more people would know about the song. But people in the know, know, and we can all take some pride in that. Oh, and a big mention has to go to the vocal harmonies by singer Tony williams during the choruses. Those, from what I remember hearing, were a very last-minute addition. A very, very nice addition, gotta add.

#1164: Kanye West – School Spirit

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Hey, look, it’s another Kanye West song on here. I’m think in the today’s world, we can all come to agree there’s no saving the guy. He’s just needs to lay low for a while. He’s said and done some stuff over the past six/seven years that has definitely skewed the way I used to gauge with him as a listener. You’ll still have those dedicated followers, for sure. Me, I tend to look more from an uninvolved distance. But there was a time when I was excited for a new Kanye project, and things from his part were coming from a relatively good place. And where better to capture that than with a song from his first album. Been 20 years, you know.

The College Dropout came into my sister’s possession back in 2004. Got the feeling it was for her birthday or something. I have memories of just being around the house and hearing it play out loud on the speakers. Some songs stood out more than others to the nine-year-old boy I was, and I can distinctly remember ‘School Spirit’ being one of those, particularly its ‘Alpha step, Omega step…’ hook and the harmonised humming vocals that appear at points during its duration. But it probably wasn’t until a few years later, think about 2008, when I properly listened to it engaged rather than in passing. Had a YouTube channel where I just uploaded albums, and I needed to upload some content, so I got to know The College Dropout a lot more around that time. That YouTube channel doesn’t exist anymore, by the way.

Kanye details his disillusionment with the educational system in this one, pretty much giving the background behind why he became the titular college dropout in the first place. He was going to pursue his own dreams of becoming a world-famous artist, something he felt he couldn’t do in the time he wanted if he was sticking around in college, and leave behind the hangers-on who would still end up in a dead-end job even with the highest level of degree. It’s nothing cynical though, the whole track is delivered with a sense of humour. West flows over an old-school beat made by himself, sampling Aretha Franklin in the process. Franklin didn’t want Kanye swearing over her material, so any curse words that appear in the track are distorted and flipped around, almost to a comical level. Luckily, you can find the uncensored version of it online without much hassle.

#904: Kanye West ft. Jay-Z & J.Ivy – Never Let Me Down

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Early memories I have of this track are hearing it play from my old computer’s speakers loudly as my sister ran through The College Dropout album. Would have been back in 2004 when the album was fresh and new, I think she got it for a birthday or something. But while she was watching MTV Base and into hip-hop and R&B, I was into bands and watching MTV2 and other channels of the like. As a result, ‘Never Let Me Down’ was never on my radar. It was always cool when Kanye came out with a new music video or something though.

Nah, it wasn’t until years later that I sat down and properly gave it a listen. I once had a YouTube channel where I would upload albums, back when copyright on there was a lot less strict. The College Dropout was one I put on there, and that allowed to revisit the tracks with new ears. I was 13 at that point, and when it came to ‘Never Let Me Down’ its hook came back to me straight away from those times I heard my sister singing it. Taking ‘Maybe It’s the Power of Love’ by 80s rock band Blackjack and pitch-shifting it to that iconic chipmunk tone that he was all over at the time, Kanye alongside Jay-Z and J.Ivy shift that song’s general message of ‘love conquers all’ to focus on their own respective personal perspectives on things they are thankful for and that have never let them down.

Now I could go all Genius on you and break down every line or whatever. But that’s what Genius is for. I’ll just make known some personal highlights for me from the track. I believe it’s said that when it comes to Kanye, he likes to use vocals as instruments. This isn’t just a new thing that’s arrived. He’s been doing it from the start. It’s clear on here yet again. There’s autotuned vocals, church choir vocals, ‘ooh’ backing vocals that follow the chord progression. It’s a vocal showcase. Then there’s spoken-word poet J.Ivy’s verse that he apparently got on the second take. Quite possibly the emotional centerpiece of the whole track. And although it was recorded for The Blueprint 2, the track was released after Jay-Z had “retired” from the music business, so I think people got excited when he appeared on here with not just one, but two verses. Years have gone on and I’ve seen that fans don’t really rates Hov’s verses ’cause they don’t match the overall tone of the track. I think they’re fine. The way he closes out the track with the sample looping fading out is cold stuff. And Kanye… well, he has a pretty heavy verse too. Pharrell Williams thought so too, judging by his reaction from the video below.