Mark Mainz/Getty Images

Dating back over twenty years, Kanye West’s earliest material demonstrates his seismic talent for production in a time when he was still a nobody

Kanye West has had some memorable lines throughout his career – Taylor Swift, croissants, the screams from the haters and so on. Though, one of his lyrics keeps resurfacing in my mind as of late:

‘You can’t fathom my love, dude, lock yourself in a room doing five beats a day for three summers’

These past few weeks, many publications have been celebrating the 15th anniversary of West’s seminal debut ‘The College Dropout’. Despite that album’s brilliance and its importance in West’s career, it’s possible to trace the Chicago native’s talents back to the 90s, before he met Jay-Z, before he signed to Roc-A-Fella Records, before his infamous car crash…

In 1997 Kanye West put together a beat tape, something which is hard to imagine for his younger fans armed with Spotify playlists. Back then West was just twenty years old and still studying at college. He wasn’t a rapper yet, mainly because no-one would listen to him rap. He was a beat-maker, locked away in his bedroom.

Speaking as a fan of Kanye’s music, he has always shone brightest as a producer, someone who is capable of marshalling a polarising range of genres and samples. This beat tape is one of the earliest relics from Kanye’s quest to seize hip-hop’s crown. It’s staggeringly impressive considering West’s age, but also the limited money and technology which was available to him at the time.

The first two beats on the tape alone sound like they could have featured anyone from A Tribe Called Quest to Massive Attack. They are sprinkled with a whole range of vibrant, crisply produced instrumentation. String sections sweep, synthesisers beep and guitar solos spiral gently round the mix. The rest of the eight tracks wonderfully show off West’s early knack for sampling and sequencing, an element of his sound which would become crucial on ‘The College Dropout’ as he chopped up Michael Jackson and Lauryn Hill.

The major comfort to find in this beat tape is Kanye’s attention to detail, which has always been there in one way or another, despite all the ego and controversy. You can imagine the young Kanye West, with his part-time job at Gap, pouring over every individual element of these compositions and putting in the same remarkable effort we’ve seen in his greatest works.

Everyone has had their own reason to be frustrated with West recently. Before he drops his next album I therefore urge you to take a listen to this tape and remind yourself how he got to where he is now. West has often stated he doesn’t care about being remembered or having a legacy. Though, the rest of us do care about his legacy. And this is arguably where it all began.