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.