What is there to say about Kanye West that you don’t know yet? The Chicago native is the talk of the town, everybody knows everything about him. And since “College Dropout” has (officially) been released, there seems no question that Kanye is taking over this game and  the ROC. So I stick with Foxxylady: F**k the intro…

First of all, be aware that Kanye’s style of producing beats is off the hook: You get a lot of direct interpolations or clearly recognizable samples, up-pitched voices and everything else that makes Kanye what he is. Nevertheless, this is a lot more than just looping a good part of an old song – Kanye is a musician, every production has its own melancholy, its own style, and they all sound like anthems and make you listen! If a beat is meant to be drama, you gon’ sit there, not daring to move. Kanye’s beats are huge, they come with full power and with the whole musical spectrum that a human being can hear in their back. Take “All Falls Down” feat. Syleena Johnson or “Never Let Me Down” feat. Jay-Z, for example, they are just perfectly produced songs.

Now to the lyrics: Kanye himself spits not only a couple, but a lot of lines on this record. If you dig the internet a little, you’ll recognize that a lot of people don’t like Kanye’s way of rapping – personally, I think Kanye’s lyrics ain’t that bad in comparison to what other people tell you on records! It’s not that Kanye lyrically fucks this album up, he just has a very different way in doing rhymes, and there are other peeps in this game that don’t have to say as much as West! Yes, he might be below the level of his productions as far as rhyming is concerned, but I personally think there’s a lot of MCs that’s weaker, and this without putting handy touches on perfect productions!!! “Breathe In Breathe Out” to name only one, features a dope beat (of course!) and the raps don’t fall short, at least in my ears.

However, there’s one thing our Chi-Town representative might have forgotten: Coherence. Kanye interrupts himself a lot on this record, meaning that just when you think that he might be an honest guy from the street telling you honestly and straight from heart about his life, and you just seem to have found the red string of the record, you get interrupted by either a pimping track or a totally unnecessary interlude. Not that those interludes wouldn’t be funny, but there’s too much of ‘em on such an album that would be over an hour long without anything filling in between the tracks. That way, it’s filling into something that’s already full. If there was a ‘thinner’ album, it might would have been sounding (even) better.

Bottom line: Kanye is definitely about to be absolutely top notch, no question. And if he manages to focus on the real important things, it’s gonna be five mics or six shots, whatever you prefer (to me that’s six shotsJ). That way, it’s just a debut record – a debut record that is very, very satisfying. And a debut record that you should buy. What is there to say about Kanye? Nuff said.