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Kanye West - Late Registration (Rock-A-Fella Records)

On Late Registration, Chicago native Kanye West brushes off any worries of a sophomore slump and continues to think outside the box of the hip-hop world. If last year's The College Dropout was West's declaration as one of the new premiere voices in music, then Late Registration emphasizes West's talents as a musical entrepreneur and solidifies himself as an undeniable presence that can not be ignored for one second.

For any artist with the opportunity, making an album is a dream come true. When world wide acclaim follows it and platinum records pile up, the thought of a follow up album has to be floating in the back of everyone's mind. That second step either proves they can find a path forward or fall backwards into failure. West could have easily delivered The College Dropout Part Two and sold millions. Instead, he recruited a producer in Jon Brion, a man with no hip-hop experience and whose credits include artists like Fiona Apple and the film score to Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The move was perceived by hip-hop big shots as artistic suicide, but, in the mind of West, playing it safe would compromise all that he has accomplished thus far. Although the ideas are bigger with bling and the line of guest vocalists longer on Late Registration, West can not seem to leave behind hip-hop's self-promotion mentality. A customer who paid $15.99 for the album shouldn't need to be reminded time and time again during a song exactly who they just gave their money to; that's not songwriting, that's advertising. But just when you think West is going through the motions for the crowd he creates a twist.

The soundtrack to 1998's Godzilla contained the over-bloated Puff Daddy opus "Come With Me," a song built on the sample of Led Zeppelin's classic 1975 song "Kashmir." Puff Daddy had already scored big the year before by using a sample of "Every Breath You Take" by The Police for a tribute to his fallen rap partner, The Notorious BIG (Biggie Smalls), called "I'll Be Missing You." Well, with "Come With Me," not even Led Zeppelin's guitarist Jimmy Page backed by a symphony could save this led balloon of a song. Simply mentioning the movie and its soundtrack is probably the most recent "publicity" it has gotten in seven years.

Where Puff Daddy failed, Kayne West succeeds with a song like "Gone." Still not the most superior rapper in the world, West has a keen ear for the right voices that can give his vision shape (count how many vocalists appear on the album). Rappers Consequence and Cam'Ron fill in the spaces West needs filled while sampling Otis Redding's "It's Too Late." The end result is a hip-hop hybrid, incorporating a driving orchestral arrangment that would make famed conductor John Williams (Star Wars, Jaws, Indiana Jones) stand and applaud. "Gone" is just one example of West allowing the music to be the song's hook. On "Touch The Sky," the horns in Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up" get slowed down from their crisp flow to a head bopping strut. The late Ray Charles appears on the album's first single "Gold Digger." Using Charles' vocal from his 1955 hit song "I Got A Woman" and Oscar winner Jamie Foxx--who portrayed Charles in the movie Ray--as a guest vocalist, West creates possibly his smoothest, hotter-than-the-sun single yet.

As a producer, West knew how to take a song and make it a world in itself. "Drive Slow" takes a tour of Chicago's South Side on any given night, from Lake Shore Drive to the I-80 expressway east into Calumet City for a stroll around River Oaks Mall with the speakers pumping in the car. In "Roses," West recalls his dying grandmother to paint a picture of how 35 years of service to the church as a secretary doesn't matter in a hospital room when "the best medicine goes to people that's paid." His frustration builds as he is faced with humanity taking a back seat to the reality of health insurance, "You tellin' me if my grandma was in the NBA/Right now she'd be ok?"

There is a clear conscious at work throughout Late Registration even while hip-hop cliches creep up between songs. Like the introduction to The College Dropout, Chicago comedian Bernie Mac reprises his role as the loudmouthed teacher who sees West as a nobody. Unfortunately, West adds four nonsensical skits at certain points of Late Registration that do nothing but cheapen the atmosphere of the album. That said, West manages to remain hungry with something more to prove to hip-hop, always finding new chips on his shoulders to fuel his fire. The College Dropout is West responding to a dare to leave the shelter of the producer's chair and get in front of a microphone. Late Registration is the lion's roar--it is Kanye West taking on everyone and anyone who stand in his way towards that which all artist crave: respect.