To be completely honest, Rocafella Records is one of the most talentless camps in hip-hop. Outside of Ol Dirty Bastard, M.O.P., and sometimes Jay-Z, the label is struggling due to its handful of terrible performers, horrid lyricists, and selfish artists. With overrated artists like Freeway, Beanie Sigel, and Memphis Bleek, backed by awful rappers The Diplomats, and pretty useless up and comers O. Sparxxx and State Property, it seems The Roc is all bark but no bite. Pretty much everything that "The Roc" has put out has been complete garbage. Sadly, even CEO and Acclaimed Rapper Jay-Z's final album, which was hyped up heavily, turned out to be simply another poof on his career.

College Dropout, the most anticipated album of the year, kicks off with "We Don't Care". Kanye West, doubling as producer and emcee for most of the album, comes on here with a relatively nice opening joint. His beat is good, yet, far from perfect. Sadly, the production on this song suffers from having too many things going on in the background. Everything from over-synthesized effects, to soul samples, to jazz, to bass is found here, and to me it sounds rather cluttered and overproduced. Subject Matter and Lyrically, Kanye does an excellent job of explaining his uprising having to do with selling drugs on the streets and living the hard life. Kanye West is pretty adept at creating very personal music about survival, and that is what this track is all about. A Nice Start.

As I have said, Kanye West typically strays away from commercialism most of the time and stays in tune with spilling his own guts on wax. Once I type this, immediately "Spaceship" comes to mind (and because its next on the tracklist). Production-wise, we get a nice soulful mix of Kanye-ish production with background vocals by GLC and a handful of well organized instruments. Subject Matter wise, Kanye West gives us an emotionally driven introspective track about the essense of life, leaving the bad times and transversing yourself into the good. Kanye touches on several subjects without staying on just one (which is kind of typical for him). The rapping and singing by both parties is admirably very good. Besides that, Consequence drops by to deliver a seminal, eye-opening verse.

The eighth track on the album, "Never Let You Down", finds a newly retired Jay-Z returning to the mic to drop a verse for Kanye. From the onset, you can tell this song is going to have heartfelt production, and that certainly rings true. Using a soulful, bass-inspired beat with violins and an instantly head-bobbing melody, this sets the tone for one of the best songs on the album. The subject matter finds Kanye West rapping about his promises made to his family (specifically his grandmother) and how he has achieved them due to his success. This is a rather good twist on the "rags to riches" type of track, and Jay-Z's verse is actually rather excellent and fitting for this song. Saul Williams gives us an incredible chorus to accompany this great song.

The next actual song "The New Workout Plan" is whack. You're probably thinking "Big D... why is the song whack?" Well, just give it one listen and you'll see. Commercial, Clubbish, Bad Beat, Bad Lyrics, Bad Delivery... typically the stuff I don't like that comes out of Rocafella Records. The same holds true for "Breathe In, Breathe Out".

"Two Words" is a crew joint featuring Freeway, Harlem Boys Choir, and the Mighty Mos Def, who sadly, isn't as mighty. I'm not sure if its the Rocafella influences taking him in, but Mos Def spits ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... rather bad on here. In fact, it's rare to find Def spit anything lower than 90%, but on here, he resorts to simple rhymes and double syllable rhymes. I mean, i know that Kweli is also losing his skills, but give me a break. Hopefully this change will not last. Freeway drops an admittingly listenable verse (dare I say, better than Def's lyrics), as well as Kanye West's rather good performance when stood up to a heavyweight like Def. Production-wise, the song delivers with a nice jazzy beat strummed with bass, low-key xylophones, and hard drum loops. Not one of West's best beats, but still fitting. However, me being a hardcore fan of Mos Def (i can never forget "Water" and "Hip-Hop"), its very difficult for me to get over his newfound whackness. Hopefully, this is only temporary as I pray that Mos Def's pen hasn't run out of ink just yet (as it seems Kweli's is rather quickly, see above).

"Family Business" and "Last Call" end the album on a high-note. After the well-produced plethora of dope tracks, we get two very conscious, personal joints with great beats, and admittingly good lyrics. Afterwards, he ends the album on a spoken word note, thanking all of those who helped him on his way up. Pretty fitting ending to College Dropout.

Yes, its better than Black Album