15 Best Kanye West Tracks

2. All Falls Down (The College Dropout)

Best Line: "The people highest up got the lowest self-esteem" It's hard to overestimate the impact Kanye West has had on not just rap music but popular music overall. Back in 2003 the hot new rapper was 50 Cent when he released Get Rich or Die Tryin', and the gangster figure was still the predominant persona in hip-hop. Kanye changed the conversation from guns, violence, and machismo to couture, the pitfalls of wealth, and self-doubt. Real rappers used stripped-down, bare-bones beats that focused you exclusively on their flow, which can be interesting from a technical standpoint but less appealing in an musical sense. I understand this is a generalization and there may have been a movement away from gangster rap without Kanye West, but he was pretty clearly the tipping point that made it okay for rappers to talk about their insecurities as well as their piles of money. All Falls Down addresses the issue of racial inequality that pervades Kanye's work directly, "We buy our way out of jail but we can't buy freedom, we buy a lot of clothes but we don't really need 'em, things we buy to cover up what's inside, because they made us hate ourselves and love they wealth, that's why shorties holla where the ballers at?" Even with all of the money in the world, Kanye can't be happy with the way things are and his relative wealth just gives him more doubts. Complexity usually isn't this accessible, that's what makes Kanye special. Featuring soulful vocals from Syleena Johnson, All Falls Down shows Kanye at his most vulnerable but he makes it out unscathed due to his immense talent and his impressive candor.