“Through The Wire” by Kanye West

Kanye West introduced himself as a solo artist with "Through the Wire", and he cut it with his jaw wired shut, the result of a car crash on October 23, 2002. The crash is what the song is about, down to the title: a play on Chaka Khan's 1985 single "Through the Fire", sampled in the chipmunk soul style that was his signature then. That's why Tom Keane, Cynthia Weil and David Foster share the writing credit. West produced it himself at the Record Plant in Los Angeles.

An early version with an Elton John outro surfaced on his Get Well Soon... mixtape in December 2002. Roc-A-Fella and Def Jam then made it the lead single from The College Dropout in September 2003, and it reached number 15 on the Hot 100, went platinum in the US and UK and drew a Grammy nomination.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.