Happy Birthday TCD.

It’s been an eventful ten years for Kanye West, and he may be having the most efficient career of all time (save Biggie, who was crowned he GOAT after two albums, but unfortunately, we never got a chance to see if he could keep that up). He’s released 6 albums, has 5 platinum plaques–His Yeezus plaque will probably arrive in the mail later this year–and has won the most Grammy awards of anyone in his age bracket ever.

Still, it won’t hurt to re-visit where it all began.

At the end of “Last Call”, the longest track on The College Dropout, Kanye recalls the moment when Dame Dash and Roc-A-Fella Records were pondering whether or not to take a flyer on the producer-turned-rapper, citing Dame probably only went for the idea because he figured he could throw Cam’ron on every track if the raps were weak. Well, needless to say, Cam’ron never made an appearance, and The College Dropout ushered in an era of musicality, lyricism, conceptualization and satire that had been seen very rarely in 2004, most definitely not for an entire album. Just as a reminder as to why Cam’ron’s services weren’t needed on this particular album–he did make an appearance on “Gone”, which can be found on Ye’s next album, Late Registration–we picked the ten best Kanye verses from The College Dropout.

-Khari Nixon (@KingVanGogh)