Kanye West has made his name by letting his production — not his voice — do the talking for him. As the man behind Jay-Z's "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" and Scarface's "Guess Who's Back," he has perfected a warm, almost sentimental brand of hip-hop, using bright, soulful beats and melodic choruses to humanize otherwise chilly gangsters.

His debut as a rapper on College Dropout might do the same thing for Jigga's Roc-A-Fella label. "Wasn't talking 'bout coke and birds," he fesses on his plaintive debut single, "Through the Wire." "It's more like spoken word." West revels in odd juxtapositions — "Get Em High" could be the only song ever to reference both Beck and Pastor Troy. West has got something to prove on Dropout: The half-serious twelve-minute monologue "Last Call" details the hard knocks he suffered to make the album a reality, and there are several skits — part comedy, part pure bitterness — about the uselessness of higher learning.

West isn't quite MC enough to hold down the entire disc; carefully sprinkled A-list guests such as Jay-Z and Mos Def help. His ace in the hole is his signature cozy sound — dusty soul samples, gospel hymns, drums that pop as if hit for the very first time. He has also succeeded in showing some vulnerability behind a glossy mainstream hip-hop sheen. On "All Falls Down," he says, "We all self-conscious/I'm just the first to admit it." Let's hope he's not the last.

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.