Kanye West was the first artist I listened to on my way to becoming a rap / hip-hop fan a couple of years ago. I loved College Dropout, but thought the next one was pretty “meh.” Did he come out with another one after that? I don’t even know.

I fell off the Kanye bandwagon pretty quickly – he’s real talented, and I think he could be a good rapper. But between the ego and the over-produced records that I only listen to a couple of times, I’d had enough of him.

Anyway, he just put out a new Mixtape and it’s not too bad. He features his usual suspects, but also brings in some new faces. But what I like about this mixtape – and really, about all of Kanye’s mixtapes, is that it shows what Kanye can do before the production. Kanye’s pretty good off the top of his head, and I think he should bring that out more along side his production.

But his experimentation with bringing music to new levels also shows on this mixtape. Take a listen to this great track featuring Kanye, Pharell, and Lupe rap over the beat of Radiohead’s The Pyramid song.

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Let me know if you want to hear more tracks!