West's debut album The College Dropout is an immediate hit, selling 441,000 copies in its first week. Not that West needs sales figures to validate his work. "You can't judge The College Dropout. It's something completely different," he tells the AP. "It's definitely a classic, if I [could] step aside from myself and say that."
With the headline "Hip-Hop's Class Act," West becomes one of the rare entertainers to appear on the cover of Time. The lengthy article details the contradictions of The College Dropout and of West himself, who admits that when starting out in hip-hop, "It was a strike against me that I didn't wear baggy jeans and jerseys and that I never hustled, never sold drugs." In April, Time had tapped West as one of the year's 100 most influential people. Read more about Kanye West here.
