1. Kanye won our hearts.
In 2004, Kanye the pauper hailed in from Chi-town, a relatively dormant hub of industry activity. He debuted with a huge slice of humility (apparently enough to last his whole career), giving us The College Dropout, which was an honest, novel, and unequivocally solid album. “History in the makin’!” Kanye cried as we smiled and nodded, too busy bumpin’ to “Slow Jamz” to notice the flame he was lighting under our asses. Still, the semi-conscious album was real—Kanye spoke to us, joked with us, and smoked with us. It was love.
