West finished recording around December 2003 , according to his older cousin and singer Tony Williams , who was recruited by the rapper two weeks before the album 's deadline to contribute vocals . Williams had impressed West by singing improvisations to " Spaceship " during one of their drives together . The singer later recounted recording with West at the Record Plant : " I get in , go in the booth , start vibing out on ' Spaceship ' and finished it up . At that point he was like , ' Ok , Well let me see what you do on this song . ' I think that 's when we did ' Last Call . ' One song lead to another , and by the end of the weekend , I was on like five songs . Then we did the ' I 'll Fly Away ' joint . " '' The College Dropout '' diverged from the then-dominant gangster persona in hip hop in favor of more diverse , topical subjects for the lyrics . Throughout the album , West touches on a number of different issues drawn from his own experiences and observations , including organized religion , family , sexuality , excessive materialism , self-consciousness , minimum wage labor , institutional prejudice , and personal struggles . Music journalist Kelefa Sanneh wrote , " Throughout the album , Mr. West taunts everyone who did n't believe in him : teachers , record executives , police officers , even his former boss at the Gap " . West explained , " My persona is that I 'm the regular person . Just think about whatever you 've been through in the past week , and I have a song about that on my album . " The album was musically notable for West 's unique development of his " chipmunk soul " production style , in which R&B and soul music samples were sped up and pitch shifted
institutional prejudice
Institutional racism
The College Dropout