Analysis & Trend Review: Ill and Got A Deal

Looking Back on the Humble yet Ambitious Beginnings of One Kanye West, via his first hit ‘Through The Wire’

As it happens, the trend itself didn’t actually begin with this particular track.

 Rather, it all started with a single TikTok account, relishing more so than plainly reviewing the heavy samples and yet immaculately original beats of the early 2000s, when the hip hop and rap sound that we’ve since become accustomed to today was not only in its adolescence, but in a fierce stand-alone prime against its predecessors.

From Ludacris and the eerie simplicity of ‘The Potion’, to Cam’ron’s nostalgically abrupt and yet perfectly timed vocal stim for ‘Oh Boy’, what was considered an adequate song in such a budding genre would perhaps not be considered for full legitimacy if it didn’t have an even halfway decent beat.

And from what evidence we have of what was produced, ‘halfway decent’ itself wasn’t even an option, let alone ‘adequate’.

In fact, with all that can still be found and listened to, outright perfection by any audible means necessary could literally be heard being sought after, by way of being the most remembered by both the critics and casual listeners who were around for the generations before, as well as the one then current.

And though many a name and song may run through the mind as to who was indeed the most memorable, one would either be incidentally forgetful, as they sift through all the artists and producers that dominated at that time or just secretly wanting to avoid personal scandal, if they tried to ignore the absolute giant that was Kanye West, circa. 2004.

Kanye West, to be even more precise, and his first recorded hit: “Through The Wire”.

Exceeding The Trend

There are several versions of ‘Through The Wire’ on TikTok, each showcasing a different section (or perhaps even the same one, but just slightly longer) of its easily recognizable production. However, the one that is seemingly reigning as recent champion is the intro to the track itself, leading into the famously pitched vocals of Chaka Khan, from her original song, entitled the same.

And what’s more, is that it is just the instrumental, and solely that. No dialogue from Kanye as is usually heard at the beginning, and no lead into the first verse – just the harmonious beauty of both beat and sample, practically a song itself if not for the fact that the audio itself is only 35 seconds long.

Just enough to instill those warm feelings of what it all originally instilled: a sense of a suddenly captured wonder, brought on at first by familiarity, but from then on… A slow, creeping astonishment at how something that was seemingly already perfect can be made better.

Currently, as it stands, the 35-second audio alone of just the intro has 6.7K posts, containing an array of reactions from all types of music specified and/or casual listener accounts. What they all appear to have in common – the shared summoning of memories that the track brings rushing back, be it the realization that the aging process of it is akin to a fine wine, or the pivotal moments of a relationship first started, and of which has stood the test of time. 

Just like the track itself has.

However, alongside the one recent clip, the original itself has since been used on TikTok as far back as 2022, keeping somewhat in line with never going past the intro, though some dating around that time seem to just use it for backing ambience to a discussed subject, or even just as background music for a silent tutorial.

Truly, in this most recent trend of these past few months or so, it is the appreciation of the song that is tantamount above all else; sitting and listening to it, and reveling in it as if hearing it for the first time again, and thus reintroducing yourself to a very young and very gifted Kanye West, who despite a near life threatening injury before production, managed to orchestrate from a felt nervousness and overwhelming raw need the outlet necessary to explain his place in a then especially merciless industry.

And such couldn’t have been more successful, nor more visible, the many times you listen to it.

Revisiting Its Sound

Just as well as production-wise, Kanye is equally recognizable when it comes to his vocals. A stark, yet medium-volumed tenor of sorts, consisting when left to run on freely a flow that smooths out whatever coarseness that the voice of a rapper-in-the-making then contained. Even now, it can be said that much of his sound has remained the same, save for the change in recent productions and lyrics.

But when it comes to ‘Through The Wire’, there is quite an identifiable difference.

Style-wise, not so much. A Kanye track is a Kanye track, and can either be rightly deciphered from the get-go, or gradually realized as it progresses.

His beats harken to each other, no matter the number of years that separate them. His samples, when used and added in, even have a similar ring of his signature that tends to hail from particular eras (late 60’s going into the 70’s).

What difference this track has is solely in vocals – in that Kanye’s voice sounds different than in the rest of the album that comes before this third-to-last track on ‘The College Dropout’.

From 0:00 to 0:35, wherein the original audio of the introduction has Kanye giving dialogue, one could no doubt that he sounds slightly lower in volume, and even softer in delivery of his normally piercing lyrics, as if refraining from strain. The latter, as it turned out, was not without reason.

Two years previously, he had recorded the vocals for what would become this track right after a car crash, and as a result had his jaw wired shut. Such would perhaps have insinuated to the more moderately motivated that a break would ensue; rest and proper medically advised leisure, and anything of the like. 

But this was not so for Kanye. 

Rather, armed with a new reserve that could only come from nearly losing his life, he quite literally – and as he so bluntly puts it at only 0:09 – “spit it through the wire, man”, and gives from thence an anthem of perseverance. At 0:044 to 0:46, you can even hear in his delivery of the name “Mr. H” him biting through the confines of his teeth, and yet still proceed on to the rest of the verse, practically without fail. 

And as it so begins to show itself as the track progresses, and though such letters as S’s and V’s sound to be a tad difficult for him to bear through, rapping his verses seem to be more articulated and harder polished than the dialogue he continues to dispense throughout its duration, making it perhaps plainer that he wants to be understood in his message than in the miracle of his ability, which still has him sort of floundering when not using his gift for words.

He is a better narrator than orator, so to speak, with a story and outline of it in mind and in hand; and in this particular instance (and particular track), a much better producer of what he can do despite his restrictions.

In fact, what remains all too readily intact is his ear for a better voice than his own when the need should arise, found rightfully in Khan’s vocals in her original ‘Through The Wire’. Where he inserts her – which is in total 1:22-1:50 and 3:00-3:29 – he speaks in what other way he can, aside from the one way he has left from the accident.

Through his infinite supply of old samples and heroic method of making from a simplistic beat and rhythm the backbone of a track to tower those that then surrounded him, he even proves that he may not have just ‘left’ with what he has.

He never lost grip of it in the first place. 

And still held firmly in his hands, no doubt, he hurried to show what he had since been revealed to him – that nothing in that moment could even try and stop him.