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Kanye West spent much of the early 2000s working his way through the music industry. While he earned placements with Jay Z, Beanie Siegel, dead prez he showed an interest in rapping as well. As he shared on Last Call, he would rap and hand out his demo while he was with Roc-A-Fella artists at Baseline Studios. College Dropout was a culmination of his come up from 1999–2003.
Recording Late Registration was the first time that West entered the studio and crafted a project entirely from scratch. Fans and critics will quickly point to Kanye being experimental on projects like 808s and Heartbreaks and Yeezus but his experimentation with music started on Late Registration. His vision was to create a more mature album and discuss personal and social issues. Prior to this album, I am not aware of a Hip Hop artist collaborating with film score producer with an orchestra background to create an album.
Jon Brion, a seasoned film score musician, joined Kanye to create a mature, cinematic experience complete with clear story lines and intricate music arrangements. During the recording sessions, Kanye would pen verses and identify samples and Brion would create scores that complimented the vision for each track. The process to blend the two artists distinct sounds took nearly a year. More than 40 musicians whom played instruments including…
