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On Feb. 10, 2004 Kanye West, Rockafella Records newest rap artist and music producer, released his debut album, The College Dropout.
It is an album that has generated much discussion on SSU's campus.
In its first week in stores, The College Dropout debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 albums' chart, selling more than 441,000 copies, while his singles "Slow Jamz" is the #1 song on Billboard's Hot 100, and "Through the Wire" is #15 this week.
With these results there is no doubt that Kanye West is defiantly a talented and successful Hip Hop artists. But is West, the dropout, sending out the right message to the Hip Hop community?
Throughout the album, West boasts of the fact that he never received a college degree and is still successfully making enough money to live and be comfortable.
Twenty-six year old West attended Columbia College in Chicago for only a short period of time before he decided to dropout. Throughout the album, he is never really clear about telling how long he was in school, but he does do a lot of complaining about college and the reasons why he dropped out.
In the song "School Spirit," West reveals that he took many college courses that were, in his opinion, a waste of his time. He boldly states that he hated school.
In this song West also mentions that a guy who graduated at the top of his class became a waiter and ironically served West on one occasion.
Hearing this particular song did not upset me as much as listening to the skit that plays before "School Spirit" comes on. In this skit, a man talks about his views on college graduates.
The anonymous man says that after getting a degree from college, you will only receive an entry level job, perhaps becoming a secretary's secretary and making a salary of $25,000 a year. This is not a true statement, judging from all the successful people I know with college degrees.
Kanye West should not be sending out this message through his music especially because the main people who listen to his music are young adults either in college or preparing to attend soon.
I interviewed a few fellow students just to find out how they felt about the album.
Delroy Cameron, a junior here at Savannah State University and also student government president, said, "There are some positive aspects one can draw in spite of the fact that Kanye did not continue with college and perhaps my immediate thought is, congratulations Mr. West."
After Cameron gives West his props for becoming successful, he does admit that the album, particularly the "School Spirit Skit," does send out a negative message to the Hip Hop Community. "The skit has a touch of irony that invokes laughter, but at the same time I do find it to be very disturbing."
He also said that West's album "leads one to believe that college is not necessarily an advocate to success and may entice young people to chase dreams that are not tangible."
Tywana Benard, a sophomore here at SSU, finds the album to be very sarcastic and amusing. "I find Kanye's views to be real and true because education is really not all that."
Benard does agree that West's boasting about not getting a degree is "not really saying much." She said that the album is not really harmful to young minds and that it is supposed to be taken lightly and laughed upon.
The album is filled with many enjoyable hot tracks that exemplify Hip Hop, but its negative aspect is that West makes college seem unimportant.
The last thing our impressionable generation needs is one of our idols leading us to educational failure.
In a recent Music Television article West says, "I try to see how I can express things in my life that other people will relate to and feel like, Man I'm glad that somebody said that."
Maybe Kanye West does not realize how much of an impact his lyrics can have on young people.
---------KMO--
