With Kanye West’s sixth — and from the sounds of it, most ambitious — studio effort due out in just days, we figured it would be a good time to look back at the hip-hop icon’s decade-long solo career.
But rather than the well-worn hits — ‘Through the Wire’ to ‘Touch the Sky’, ‘Heartless’ to ‘Monster’ — we thought it better to look at some of Yeezus’s best mixtape tracks, bonus cuts, and rarities, charting his career from college dropout to throne watcher. Here are the ten best.
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‘KEEP THE RECEIPT’ FEAT. DIRT MCGIRT
(WHITE LABEL, 2003)
Excised from The College Dropout between leak and release, ‘Keep The Receipt’ is a muscular bit of boom-bap fueled by reedy synths and the inimitable Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Kanye’s braggadocio is focused on his hit-making prowess and producer-to-rapper transition, with some of his best — if not quite timeless — battle rap lines (“Your broke-ass mamma couldn’t afford that abortion / Now tell me how the hell she gon’ afford that coffin”).
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‘GOSSIP FILES’ / ‘DREAMKILLERS’
(FRESHMAN ADJUSTMENT MIXTAPE, 2005)
From featuring ODB to sampling him, this College Dropout-era track again deals with Kanye’s doubters, over a beat kept airy by keys-and-synths. Even though the song was never released, some of these lyrics were re-used on ‘School Spirit’ and another couplet (“Cuz we the leaders, and they the followers /And we the nut busters, and they the swallowers”) was reworked for Yeezus cut ‘New Slaves’.
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‘WE CAN MAKE IT BETTER’ FEAT. COMMON, Q-TIP, TALIB KWELI & RHYMEFEST
(LATE REGISTRATION BONUS, 2005)
After popularizing the style, ‘We Can Make It Better’ is one of Kanye’s last tracks to revolve around a chipmunked soul sample. Between the beat and a who’s-who of conscious rap touchstones, the song does seem better suited for The College Dropout.
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‘GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS’ REMIX
(FRESHMAN ADJUSTMENT 2, 2006)
Kanye’s remix of Jay-Z’s Just Blaze-produced classic was a bonus on The Blueprint, and he would rap over it for the Freshman Adjustment mixtape series. Sampling The Persuaders rather than Tom Brock, Kanye is clever and playful (“You remind me of my jeep but not no Kia / we can talk on my cell but not Nokia”) — a Kanye we haven’t heard from in some time.
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‘US PLACERS’
(CAN’T TELL ME NOTHING MIXTAPE, 2007)
Child Rebel Soldier, the short-lived supergroup of Kanye, Pharrell, and, ahem, Lupe Fiasco, only released two tracks, and this one is the highlight. Lupe turned Thom Yorke’s ‘The Eraser’ into a shifty examination of fame and wealth, made even more melancholy thanks to Yorke’s vocals on the hook.
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‘BITTERSWEET POETRY’ FEAT. JOHN MAYER
(GRADUATION BONUS, 2007)
The origin of this song is too much: after seeing Ray together, Kanye and bigmouthed bluesman John Mayer hit the studio. Originally intended for Late Registration, this interpolation of Chairmen of the Board’s ‘Bittersweet’ was added as a bonus cut on Graduation, keeping John Mayer’s hook and a regrettable Chris Rock reference (“I’d never hit a girl, but I’ll shake the shit out of you”) out of the dustbin of history.
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‘MAMA’S BOYFRIEND’
(UNRELEASED, 2010)
The thought of a Billy Joel sample on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is perplexing, which probably explains why this Q-Tip produced song was left off the album. Of what we’ve heard of the song (via Tip’s RBMA session, at about the 1h38m mark, below), it’s another track that evokes the College Dropout era, both sonically and lyrically.
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‘SEE ME NOW’ FEAT. BEYONCÉ & CHARLIE WILSON
(MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY BONUS, 2010)
A hit parade both on the mic and on the boards: Queen Bey and the venerable Mr. Wilson add a touch of gospel, while the beat teams Kanye with hitmakers Lex Luger and No I.D. While it didn’t fit the “dark twisted” tone of the record, it would have been a shame if this one wasn’t released, both for the powerful composition and Kanye’s “I’m Socrates / but my skin more chocolatey” line.
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‘THE JOY’ FEAT. PETE ROCK, JAY-Z, CHARLIE WILSON & KID CUDI
(GOOD FRIDAYS, 2010 / WATCH THE THRONE BONUS, 2011)
Kanye’s best Curtis Mayfield sample since ‘Touch the Sky’, this one turned up as part of his 2010 GOOD Friday free-for-all before being appended to Watch the Throne. Produced by the legendary Pete Rock, this one belongs to an entirely different era of hip-hop all together.
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‘WHITE DRESS’
(THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS, 2012)
RZA executive produced the soundtrack to his directorial debut, and he saved this Stax-kissed jam for Kanye, who delivers an overlong but understated verse that overflows with verisimilitude (“Remember I used to do things that’d make you laugh / Like orderin’ a girl drink in a masculine glass”), pop culture (“flannels all summer like Kurt Cobain”), and, yes, some cringeworthy wordplay (“Turned the lights out and put my candle right in her”).
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