"College Dropout" Hit Sends Wrong Message

In its first week, "The College Dropout" album by rap artist and producer Kanye West sold more than 441,000 copies. It has since gone platinum. The singles "Slow Jamz" and "Through the Wire" have been top-selling. West, the hip hop artist, is talented and successful. But is West, the dropout, sending the right message to the hip hop community?

Photo credit: Rocafella.com Does Kanye West realize the impact his lyrics have?

West's main audience is young adults either in college or preparing to attend soon.

Throughout the album, West boasts that he never received a college degree and is still successfully making enough money to live and be comfortable.

West, 26, attended Columbia College in Chicago for only a short time. Throughout the album, he is never really clear about how long he was in school, but he does complain a lot about college.

In "School Spirit," West says that he took many courses that were a waste of his time. He boldly states that he hated school. West also mentions that a guy who graduated at the top of his class became a waiter and on one occasion, served him.

Hearing that did not upset me as much as the skit that precedes it, in which an anonymous man says that a person with a degree will receive only an entry-level job, perhaps becoming a secretary's secretary and making $25,000 a year.

Not true, judging from all the successful people I know with college degrees.

Some Savannah State degree-seekers have mixed feelings about the album.

Delroy Cameron, a junior who is student government president, said, "There are some positive aspects one can draw, in spite of the fact that Kanye did not continue with college, and perhaps my immediate thought is, congratulations Mr. West."

But Cameron admitted that the album, particularly the "School Spirit Skit," does send out a negative message. "The skit has a touch of irony that invokes laughter, but at the same time I do find it to be very disturbing," he said.

The album "leads one to believe that college is not necessarily [a means] to success and may entice young people to chase dreams that are not tangible."

Tywana Benard, a sophomore, said she considered the album sarcastic and amusing, saying, "I find Kanye's views to be real and true because education is really not all that."

Benard agreed that West's boasting about not getting a degree was "not really saying much," but said that the album was not really harmful to young minds and was supposed to be taken lightly.

In an article on the MTV Web site, West says, "I try to see how I can express things in my life that other people will relate to and feel like, 'Man I'm glad that somebody said that.'"

Maybe West does not realize how much of an impact his lyrics can have on young people.

"The College Dropout" is filled with enjoyable hot tracks that exemplify hip hop, but the last thing our impressionable generation needs is one of our idols leading us to educational failure.

Kai-Mariama Osiapem, a student at Savannah State University, writes for The Tiger's Roar.

Posted April 5, 2004