Kanye West spent a little time in college (he proudly dropped out, in case you missed it), and the experience seems to hold the same place in his psyche that first moving to the prairie held in Willa Cather's. After appearing as Mr. College Dropout for his debut, he's now showing up for a Late Registration. Why would you register if you're out of school? It's for us -- he's taking us "back to school". Yeah, the conceit (in both senses) is horrible, but behind it lies music worth inclusion on your Hip-Hop 2005 syllabus.

The individual tracks vary too much in quality, but West has once again assembled an album that works from start to finish, paying attention to sequencing, thematic movements, and lyrical progression. "My Way Home" features a sample of Gil Scott-Heron's powerful "Home Is Where the Hatred Is", and West quickly ties this track into the following "Crack Music" with a deft rhyme: "You hear that, what Gil Scott was hearin' / When heroes and heroines got hooked on heroin?" Even the appearance of the malleable, Dre-created the Game functions here, even if he sounds more example than exemplar, possibly because he appears after Common's conscious flow.

West also offers a surprise by putting Nas's guest vocal immediately following Jay-Z's. The ever-fussing producer couldn't have overlooked this juxtaposition; it's a way he's reinforcing his opinion of himself as hip-hop's elevator. Getting arch-rivals Nas and Jigga next door is a more unlikely accomplishment than pulling together so many threads of black popular music from the past 50 years (merging Otis Redding, Heron, chopped and screwing, with Ray Charles and Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles). West has no limits on his ambition, and while that might lead to seven-and-a-half-minute stumbles like "We Major" (one of the only times co-producer Jon Brion overdoes it), it also leads to 70-plus minutes of precise presentation.

Despite the production precision, the album doesn't prevail lyrically against The College Dropout. West still brings the social commentary and humor, but it was his conflicted personality that made the first album so endearing; now the focus turns from artistic self-expression to ambitious music consummation. Although he proficiently provides an encompassing musical view, he doesn't present a singular emotional concern. Where Dropout was questioning, erratic, and affecting, Registration is assured, composed, and affected. The political call-outs are too facile, the emotional moments are too easy, and West's vocabulary is too hard for its own good (check the increase of ho-nigga-bitch usage). Neither "Roses" nor "Hey Mama" -- the album's primary takes on familial relationships -- works; the first loses out to preachy lack of insight on an important topic (class and medical care), and the second falls prey to its own insistence and directness. West expresses his love most effectively through oblique unveiling, not through bald statements and cloying, tinkly production.

The unified personality might be best left in check, though. West's well-known arrogance rears up in odd and inconsistent ways. "Bring Me Down", which includes a competent performance by Brandy, tries to rant against the haters, but West bursts out with his own insults, irritating his critics and colleagues rather than spreading the cheer. Which would be fine, I suppose, if he didn't do it by dropping lines he used on "Wack Niggaz" from last year's The Beautiful Mixtape. West insults his contemporaries by using old lines in his complaints about everyone trying to bring him down? This moment is less a confidence/fear conflict than sloppy work. Here's the thing -- and pay attention, Kanye -- the whole "I'm only arrogant because I'm insecure" is worse than a lie and worse than lazy; it's boring.

Kanye's flow has improved, which ameliorates even the weaker moments on the album. He sounds more confident in his delivery, twisting around words and tight rhymes, losing the mic-as-blunt-object feel that previously served as a charming shortcoming. Even so, it's really the production that's worth noting on Registration. He avoids the deep crate-digging of other top producers for interesting work with recognizable samples. The single "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" -- on which Jay-Z takes time out of his AARP schedule to make sure we're paying attention to the ice in the Roc -- features an ironic use of the Bond theme "Diamonds Are Forever". On "Drive Slow", West uses his knowledge of the current hip-hop scene to critique his own content. By turning the end of the song into its own chopped-and-screwed sizzurp number, he draws a dark ambivalence to the song. What started out as a plea to slow down for hoes has become a warning to proceed with caution.

"Gone" delivers the real showstopper with a gorgeous hook based on Otis Redding's pain from "It's Too Late", which carries an otherwise over-long track. The piano and vocal loop carries a far more powerful wallop than any of the competent lines from West, Consequence, or Cam'Ron. West not only creates a great sound, he knows how to work it, bringing it in and out of the mix for impact, re-charging the song at any moment the rappers (or the listeners) need to be directed back to center. Unlike "Diamonds", there's nothing of cleverness here -- it's just intelligent artistry.

So the self-aggrandizing, tantrum-loving, almost-conscious, beat-making rapper dropped his new record and it's neither a disappointment nor a masterpiece. It's hard to deny that West is a brilliant craftsman, unafraid to pursue unusual song structures and persistent in pursuing the perfect hook, but that craft has turned from self-expressive tool toward canon-expanding weapon. West is a star when he sounds least like one, nakedly exploring his life. The more he sounds like a genius (even in the company of Ray Charles), the more his current attempts at musical glory become the unmentioned centerpiece of Late Registration. He's very good, but you don't make classics by trying to make classics. I don't think they teach that lesson until your third year.