The Prerequisite

The Prerequisite
Unofficial cover art commonly associated with the demo recordings.
Demo album by
Kanye West
Released
  • 2001 (private distribution)
  • April 20, 2013 (2013-04-20) (surfaced online)
Recorded2000–2001
GenreHip-hop
Length47:40
LabelRoc-A-Fella
Producer
Kanye West chronology
The Prerequisite
(2001)		 Get Well Soon
(2002)

The Prerequisite is the commonly used name for a collection of demo recordings created by American rapper Kanye West, distributed privately to record labels and industry insiders in 2001. The full set of recordings surfaced online on April 20, 2013. The demo album contains songs like "Home (Windy)" and "Jesus Walks" that were reworked and released on future albums, such as Graduation and The College Dropout, with instrumentals from other tracks being given to artists such as Common.

Background

Unlike West's other mixtapes, The Prerequisite contains mostly original songs as he performs in each track of the mixtape.

The most notable tracks are "Jesus Walks" and "Dream Come True" (later renamed "All Falls Down"), both of which released on West's debut studio album The College Dropout (2004); "Hey Mama", which released on West's second studio album, Late Registration (2005); and "Home (Windy)", which had its lyrics reused for "Homecoming" from West's third studio album, Graduation (2007). The track "Wow" was later referenced by West on The College Dropout's final track, "Last Call". Tracks that appear on later albums have varying levels of mixing changes, with "Dream Come True" having a direct sample of the song "Mystery of Iniquity" by Lauryn Hill, rather than an interpolation.

The mixtape surfaced online on April 20, 2013.

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."Home (Windy)" (with John Legend)2:52
2."Jesus Walks" (with Rhymefest)2:19
3."Have It Your Way"3:38
4."Out of Your Mind" (with John Legend)3:25
5."Wow"2:25
6."I Need to Know"3:44
7."Gotta Pose" (snippet, with Solomon Burke)1:26
8."Never Letting Go (The Stalker Song)"4:01
9."Hey Mama"4:24
10."Know the Game"2:58
11."Family Business" (with Larry Wade and Terry Callier)4:10
12."Dream Come True"3:54
13."That Nigga Jigga" (with DJ Boom)2:20
14."I Met Oprah"2:45
15."Heartbeat" (instrumental)3:19
Total length:47:40

Notes

References

  1. 1 2 "Kanye West - The Prerequisite (2001 Demo Tape)". Hypebeast. Retrieved February 26, 2026.
  2. ↑ "AUDIO: Kanye West – The Prerequisite (2001 Demo)". ItsTheDaily. April 22, 2013. Retrieved February 26, 2026.[unreliable source?]
  3. ↑ Coplan, Chris (February 7, 2014). "Listen to a rare Kanye West demo tape from 2001". Consequence. Archived from the original on March 26, 2024. Retrieved February 26, 2026.
  4. ↑ "Listen To Kanye West's 2001 Demo Tape". HuffPost. February 7, 2014. Archived from the original on January 20, 2025. Retrieved June 4, 2026.
  5. ↑ "Kanye West – The Prerequisite (Unreleased Demos)". April 23, 2013. Retrieved June 4, 2026.
  6. ↑ Parfit (April 22, 2013). "Kanye West - The Prerequisite (Mixtape)". Ambrosia For Heads. Archived from the original on September 11, 2025. Retrieved June 4, 2026.
  7. ↑ Shipley, Al (September 11, 2017). "Kanye West's 'Graduation': 10 Things You Didn't Know". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on February 3, 2018. Retrieved June 11, 2026.
  8. ↑ Ahmed, Insanul (March 2, 2022). "The Annotated jeen-yuhs: The Stories Behind Part 3 of Netflix's Kanye Doc". GQ. Retrieved July 10, 2026. The doc's cold open finds Kanye rapping "Wow" to the camera—an early cut that never made an album but was referenced on College Dropout closing track "Last Call"
  9. ↑ "Kanye West's 2001 unreleased demo album 'The Prerequisite' leaks | Stagedoor FM". Stagedoor FM. April 22, 2013. Retrieved February 26, 2026.
  10. ↑ Barber, Andrew (February 9, 2016). "The 100 Best Kanye West Songs". Complex. Archived from the original on March 30, 2016. Retrieved June 11, 2026.