Cross-posted from Haywire Hip Hop
This week seems like a particularly apt time to discuss the value and artful components of a successful debut album, as a certain Jay-Z protégé’s long-awaited and much-discussed debut album hit stores to heavy fanfare across the Twitter world and the web’s best rap blogs. But before we toss around superlatives and map out J. Cole’s future career trajectory and try to predict what his debut will mean to the game as a whole, it’s important to turn over a few stones—Rocs, if you will—from hip hop’s past.
It was over seven years ago that Kanye West released his Roc-A-Fella debut album, The College Dropout. The album was musically revolutionary, critically acclaimed, certified double-platinum and put Kanye in the hip hop game to stay. Whereas his name prior to his debut was made as a producer for artists like Jay-Z, West proved on The College Dropout that, not only did he have a remarkable sound to offer, but he had remarkable things to say.
The College Dropout was commercially successful and musically momentous because it hadeverything: unique and refreshing content, phenomenal beats, several standout singles and the staying power to eventually warrant the label of “classic.” In that light, I propose a checklist to crafting a brilliant debut album that an aspiring rapper could perhaps consider to be guidelines on how to get up off the sidelines.
Lyrical Themes: Your debut might ship, but the number one way to make sure it sails is to make it different than anything anyone in the rap game has ever done before. Sure, everyone relies upon foundational influencing rappers to aid in crafting his own style, but if your debut isn’t distinctly youthen it can’t be a classic. A successful debut album must so clearly and smartly display an artist’s style and musical persona such that that artist is henceforth ingrained in music’s landscape.
Kanye succeeded with The College Dropout largely because the album’s content so broke with the established hip hop norms of the day that fans practically had to pay attention to it. In a day and age where the gangster persona dominated hip hop, Yeezy diverged from that persona and offered his own refreshing and inventive takes on life from a real-life world. Often introspective and always genuine, The College Dropout severely altered the course of hip hop as we know it because it paved the way for a new brand of rapper, one who employed his brain, emotion and wit in place of a manufactured gangster image.
Production: No one wants to listen to an album of quality raps over bland, underproduced beats. Hell, an individual song is nothing without a beat worth listening to no matter how hard a rapper can go. An impactful debut album must be packed with top-grade production from beginning to end that truly showcase the up-and-coming artist’s sound and play to his lyrical strengths—that is, certain rappers with certain flows excel at rapping over certain styles of beats.
Kanye, ever the egotist, produced every single song—stop and take that in for a moment—on his groundbreaking debut album. But the main point to be taken from Kanye’s production credits throughout The College Dropout isn’t that Chi-Town’s finest was keeping busy by producing his own music—the beats themselves were groundbreaking. Ye’s style of production, grounded on creative soul samples and a full, explosive sound was so distinct that producing was how he burst onto the hip hop scene in the first place, producing Jay-Z’s 2001 hit “Izzo” by flipping a Jackson 5 sample. Within that framework, the production on Kanye’s album is so incredible—check out the full list ofsamples he used—that The College Dropout could have been a classic almost on beats alone.
Smash Hits: Even going beyond the scope of Kanye West’s renowned debut, almost every strong debut hip hop album of the past decade was marked by a handful of stand-out songs that instantly put an artist on the map. Does this mean an artist has to “sell out” a bit to make a radio hit? Sometimes, but the best will do so without sacrificing the quality of their music. The beginning of an artist’s true national presence is his first big hit single—think about the first time you heard 50 Cent’s “In Da Club”—and a classic debut album must have many of these gems.
Saying that The College Dropout was filled with hits is an understatement. “Through the Wire” is a flat-out incredible song, recorded in the weeks after Kanye was in a near-fatal car accident and had his jaw wired shut—he literally rapped through the wire. The fact that he made a classic first single with his mouth wired shut can actually not be overstated. “Slow Jamz” offered Ye his first number one single, and it would be hands down the most fun song on the album until you remember how batshit crazy you went the first time you heard “The New Workout Plan.” The other two singles? The refreshing and introspective “All Falls Down” and the Grammy-winning “Jesus Walks.” No wonder dude’s got such a big ego.
Memorable Moments: It is this last category that gives an album its longevity, its impact, its classic status. When I listen to The College Dropout, even today, clever punchlines stick with me, smooth songs stand out and images and memories rush back. The way people used to sing the chorus to “We Don’t Care” in the hallways at school makes Kanye’s debut a classic. The album’s stellar features, notably Talbi Kweli and Common on “Get ‘Em High” and Mos Def and Freeway on “Two Words,” made Kanye’s debut a classic. The preposterous image purveyed in “Spaceship” of the now immortal rapper working at the Gap makes Kanye’s debut a classic. And, of course, Jay-Z’s wild laugh and instantly recognizable dialogue to open “Last Call”—“Yo fuck you Kanye, first and foremost, for makin’ me do this shit”—makes Kanye’s debut a classic.
If anything, Yeezy taught us that you need a little more than a dollar and a dream to produce a classic debut hip hop album. The ultimate value of anyone’s debut—today or in the future—will be judged on its staying power and the lasting effect it has on the hip hop landscape. So listen with a careful ear to J. Cole’s debut, but know that the real reviews won’t be in until people are still listening in the years to come.