Kanye West avoids the sophomore slump with his new album Late Registration, an album full of appearances and his traditional sampling of many songs from the likes of Natalie Cole and Orange Crush to name a few. Throughout the album there are guest appearances from Cam’ron, Brandy, The Game, Jay-Z, Paul Wall, Adam Levine of Maroon 5, Jamie Foxx, Nas, and Getting Out Our Dreams label-mates, Common and GLC. In his second album, West gets some help from Jon Brion, who is known for his orchestral arrangements with artists like Fiona Apple and Aimme Mann. Brion was co-executive producer of nearly every track on Late Registration, playing guitar and keyboard among other instruments.

One of the early tracks on the album, “Heard ‘Em Say” featuring Adam Levine is the conscious track of the album, praising honesty and righteousness. The combination of a jazzy vibe and the slowed down chopped-and-screwed style make up the parking-lot-pimpin’ song, “Drive Slow” featuring Paul Wall and GLC. The album’s rawest song on Late Registration, “Crack Music” featuring The Game, describes politics and the black panthers.

The arrogant emcee’s first single, “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” which is featured twice on the album (original and remix featuring Jay-Z) rejoices his stardom to fame and carrying the record label that supported him when no one did, Roc-A-Fella Records: “Big K pick up where young Hov left off/ Right when magazines wrote Kanye West off/ I dropped my new s*** sound like the best of/A&R’s lookin’ like ‘pssh we messed up’/Grammy night, damn right, we got dressed up/Bottle after bottle till we got messed up.”

West’s 2nd single, “Gold Digger” featuring Jamie Foxx is an upbeat song with a catchy hook which has a situation that almost every man could relate to: A woman who only needs you because your pockets are fat with cash. The versatile Foxx compliments the track which samples “I Got a Woman” with his singing talents, in which he impersonates the late Ray Charles.

Just like The College Dropout, West includes entertaining but good-humored skits which surround college entities like fraternities and being dead broke without cash, cars and women, and of course, poking fun at himself. In one particular skit, West flips the script, describing being broke and not having a Christmas tree. The unfortunate skit leads into the heartfelt track, “Hey Mama”, in which West pays homage and much praise to his mother for the sacrifices and good deeds she made as Kanye grew up into the man he is today.

To sum up his rapping style, Kanye says it best himself: What more can you ask for?/The international a******* nah/Who complains about what he is owed?/And throw a tantrum like he is 3 years old/You gotta love it though somebody still speaks from his soul/. -“Diamonds from Sierra Leone.”

So pick up Kanye West’s Late Registration, because it’ll have you throwing up your diamonds.