The album for the most part keeps consistent with the past theme of struggles of the educated life, but where The College Dropout was a frustrating affair (reflected both lyrically and in the album’s all-over-the-map tracklisting), Late Registration is a step beyond and out of reach of West’s contemporaries.
With Late Registration, the premier Roc-a-Fella producer has manifested in my opinion a hip-hop rarity: a album that combines a sonic template of dignified elegance against intense beats and lyrics full of Freudian paradoxes and intense self-consciousness.
Of course, currently it seems that Hurricane Katrina destroyed more than homes and the mentioning of “Kanye West” has become synonymous with “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” (and the hilariously jilted faces of Mike Meyers and Chris Tucker).Īnd thus as Kanye the Social Advocate is not as brilliant as Kanye the Musician, it’s a shame that this otherwise powerful album has quickly taken a backseat, as Late Registration for the most part is a major step forward from his solo debut, The College Dropout. And this is certainly a truism, cause it seems that everyone across all genres of music loves this song- I think of it as the “Hey Ya!” of 2005. West and how awesome the first single “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” is. At that specific time, when one mentions “Kanye West”, the average listener was all praise for Mr. I mean, look at Kanye West- just a month ago the whole music industry and music listeners around the globe were eagerly awaiting the release of his sophomore album, Late Registration. It’s amazing how fast time flies these days.