Not content with being judged as a rapper/producer, he saw his future – and that of hip hop at large – lying beyond American culture and in a broader, international market. The stage was set then for Kanye to deliver on the superstar status he ascribed to himself. The futuristic fusion of Kanye’s mythological story of survival and the sample of Daft Punk’s 2001 single “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” made “Stronger” an international hit, taking the top spot on the Billboard charts in the US and bagging him his first UK #1 while acting as a key foundation in the development of what would become EDM in subsequent years. “Stronger”, however, was unlike anything Kanye had done before. At this point, the song was one of the most revealing and personal he had put down, and despite the lyrics suggesting Kanye was still learning to cope with celebrity, it presaged the swaggering nature of what was to come with his music. “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” detailed an individual triumph in answering the critics he faced in the first three years of stardom, while explicating on the pressures of fame. The mixtape featured the title track as well as “Stronger”, with both serving as the lead and second singles of the album.
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#Kanye west graduation album songs for free#
In the months leading up to the album’s release, he dropped the mixtape Can’t Tell Me Nothing for free online. Released ten years ago today, when Graduation hit store shelves on September 11, 2007, listeners found Kanye in a celebratory mood. It wasn’t so much as Kanye saying “Good Morning” it was him saying goodbye. On the song’s third verse he went even further by taunting “ the valedictorian, scared of the future” while he hopped in the DeLorean.
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In a remarkable act of self-aggrandisement, Kanye distanced himself from his creation as if it were effortless. In this departure from the high education trilogy, the nonchalant Kanye ripped up his thesis and threw it up in the air like confetti while everyone else threw their graduation cap. “Good Morning”, the album’s opening track, pivots on the assertion that “ This is my dissertation / Homie this shit is basic / Welcome to Graduation.” In calling his dissertation “basic”, Kanye rejects college, the institution that had provided him with a theme to traverse hip hop and take it into a new dimension with his debut album, 2004’s The College Dropout, and its 2005 follow-up Late Registration. Kanye West’s third studio album Graduation opens with a revelation that sums up the self-assured hubris only he could possess.