A single lyric from Kanye West’s early catalog is back in the spotlight, thanks to O’Shea Jackson Jr.
Jackson took to X on Sunday (April 12) to call out a striking line from Kanye’s 2004 debut album The College Dropout, zeroing in on a moment from “Get ‘Em High” that highlighted Ye’s will to be great.
“In school when Kanye’s teacher called him a loser,” Jackson wrote. “His response was WHY DONT YOU KILL ME!?!”
He continued, “That’s in COLLEGE DROPOUT. What kinda rebuttal is that?! Talk about raising the stakes.”
Jackson closed his tweet on a lighter note, adding: “Whoever reading this. Go drink some water.”
The line, delivered during a verse about Kanye's early struggles in school, captures the frustration he felt toward authority figures who doubted his path.
"My freshman year, I was going through hella problems / 'Till I built up the nerve to drop my ass up out of college / My teacher said I's a loser, I told her, 'Why don't you kill me? / I give a fuck if you fail me, I'm gonna follow / My heart,' and if you follow the charts / Or the plaques or the stacks, you ain't gotta guess who's back, you see?," raps Kanye.
The post quickly resonated with fans, many of whom revisited the lyric and reflected on the raw emotion behind it, while others claimed that Ye borrowed the line from Beck's 1993 single “Loser,” in which he sings, "I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?"
"Hell yea," someone tweeted alongside a picture of Ye. Another person said, referencing the next bar in Kanye's song, "I give a fuck if you feel me im gonna follow my heart."
A third person tweeted, "Oof. Dude didn't understand the Beck reference."
"Get 'Em High," which features Talib Kweli and Common, is one of several tracks on The College Dropout where Ye explores themes of rejection, ambition, and nonconformity on songs such as "Spaceships," "Jesus Walks," "All Falls Down," and more.
