Whether it’s for real or simply another one of the media’s far-fetched trend perceptions, there’s been talk of a current movement in pop music about being almost arrogantly comfortable with who you are. It could be about letting that freak flag fly, or just being ballsy enough to think you can grow wings yourself.
When he stepped to the microphone after cutting his teeth behind the boards, a hardworking, initially humble producer named Kanye West was not the first person a hip-hop head would expect to evolve as rap’s Bono (he would even take sunglasses to a whole new shuttered level). Then the dude literally cut his teeth: A car accident in October 2002 left him with his jaw wired shut.
Despite producing Jay-Z’s The Blueprint and a handful of records after that, West’s grainy chipmunk soul—an iconoclastic raised fist against the dense club jungle of beatz like Swizz’s—didn’t sound like much on hip-hop radio when his debut The College Dropout came out in early 2004. That scene was mostly reserved for high-fructose crunk syrup and greasy gimmick rap (Obie Trice, anyone?).
Then again, rapping with one’s jaw clamped closed sounds like an equally gimmicky way to sell a first single. But the brace isn’t just the context on “Through the Wire”; it’s exposition, plot and climax too. This cut from College Dropout didn’t garner the attention of “Slow Jamz,” “All Falls Down” or especially “Jesus Walks,” but it steamrolled all those on an uneven album that showed a gifted producer feeling around for another strength. In “Through The Wire,” the first single from his first album, this Jesus is learning to walk from the start.
The metal has West sounding like Beanie Sigel in the intro, but his awkward lockjaw flow in the verses can’t be blamed so much on the wire as his newness to rapping. It’s not entirely a reflection on him that he wasn’t white hot from the start, as most producers stumble when stepping in the booth.
Think about it. Diddy? All shag and no carpet. Dr. Dre? He can cook up summer classics like a gangsta Mario Batali, but he delivers punchlines with all the flow of tree sap, even with Jay-Z ghostwriting. And on last year’s Gutter Water, the reliable Alchemist fell to the fate of producer-turned-rapper (in addition to a concept album about sewage and the lackluster quality of good intentioned, cardboard-flavored purist rap).
“Through the Wire” isn’t the last time West will mention Ma$e, and that’s not the only name drop. “I look like Tom Cruise on Vanilla Sky,” he raps, owning the situation line after line until there’s nothing anyone can say.
Looking back, this type of fuck-all rulebook-tearing set the stage for those to come. Before Lil’ B announced an album called I’m Gay in a staunchly homophobic genre, “Through The Wire” introduced an album disgusted with its materialism and puffed up self-image while e’rybody was in the club gettin’ tipsy. Before Rick Ross was outed as a parole officer and subsequently decided to take a running leap into Crime Boss Disneyland, this track took a potential hindrance and spun it into a fresh concept. And in 2004, like many years before and since, rap wasn’t exactly about fresh concepts.
“We all self-conscious, I’m just the first to admit it,” he confessed elsewhere on the album, this seemingly benign statement a big deal for the cold, unflinching genre of rap. Listening to “Through the Wire,” it’s clear Kanye West was struggling and down on his luck—in other words, once like many of us. And even back then, without the airbrushed effect of nostalgia, he sounded happy with it.
