Episode 63: G Yamazawa on Kanye West’s “The College Dropout” (2004)

Episode notes

The Album: Kanye West: College Dropout (2004)

Kanye has had a…not great year. From a public relations standpoint, it’s been nothing short of a disaster. And yet…’Ye remains one of the most intriguing (if not also infuriating) pop acts we have, evinced to us by the fact that two different guests – rapper G Yamazawa and R&B legend Macy Gray – both asked to talk about Kanye West albums when they came on our show. By further coincidence, they came on the same day to tape which also happened to be the day of West’s now-infamous Saturday Night Live appearance. West was also supposed to drop a new album that evening, Yandhi (spoiler alert: he didn’t). Sufficed to say, all things pointed West that day, so much so that we were a little worried about releasing these episodes lest our listeners were suffering from too much Kanye fatigue.

And yet…both conversations (the Macy Gray episode, about My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy will drop next week) were so compelling that we couldn’t help ourselves. This one, with Yamazawa, was especially great in revisiting the old Kanye, chop-up-the-soul Kanye of College Dropout, where the young producer-turned-rapper came firing out the gate, putting the hip-hop world on notice that “oh sh—, Kanye raps too?” For G Yamazawa, then a young’un growing up in Durham “North Cack,” West made a huge impression with his humor, sly politics and of course, the beats. Yamazawa, now relocated to L.A., knows something about sliding between worlds as a former champion spoken word poet turned MC (peep his new Money Is Time album) and together, we discussed what it was like for all of us to discover West’s new persona back then, his taste in samples, and what era of West we gravitate towards.

More on G Yamazawa

• “Southern Fried Asian: G Yamazawa” (Nerds of Color)
• “In Poetry and Hip-Hop, George ‘G’ Yamazawa Found His Self” (NBC)
• Website | Twitter | Facebook

More on College Dropout

• “14 Things You Didn’t Know About Kanye West’s The College Dropout” (Capital Xtra)
• “Kanye West’s The College Dropout: An Oral History” (Billboard)
• “The DNA Of Kanye West’s The College Dropout” (Noisey/Vice)

Show Tracklisting (all songs from College Dropout unless indicated otherwise):

• The New Workout Plan
• G Yamazawa: Drumma Some
• Chaka Khan: Through the Fire
• Through the Wire
• Last Call
• All Falls Down
• Slow Jamz
• Lil Jimmy Skit
• Workout Plan
• Spaceship
• Little Brother: Slow it Down
• Luther Vandross: A House Is Not A Home
• Slow Jamz
• Marvin Gaye: Distant Lover
• Spaceship
• The ARC Choir: Walk With Me
• Jesus Walks
• All Falls Down (Demo)
• All Falls Down
• Intro
• Kanye West: Wake Up Mr. West
• Breathe In Breathe Out
• Jesus Walks
• I’ll Fly Away
• Get Em High
• Last Call
• All Falls Down

Here is the Spotify playlist of as many songs as we can find on there.

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