Through the Wire

CTL-E-5926 · Work · song · 2003

STRONG EVIDENCE evidence grade — master store (canonical CSV)

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-00452 · provenance: canonical master store (CSV), record CTL-W-0140 + build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5926. Master record source: CTL seed 2026-10-16 — UNVERIFIED, verify before public citation.

“Through the Wire” is the debut solo single by Chicago rapper and producer Kanye West, released September 30, 2003, on Roc-A-Fella and Def Jam as the lead single from his debut album The College Dropout (2004). West recorded the song in November 2002 at the Record Plant in Los Angeles with his jaw wired shut, recovering from an October 23, 2002, car crash that nearly killed him; the title and the performance itself document that convalescence. The track is built on a sped-up sample of Chaka Khan's 1985 recording “Through the Fire,” and its credited writers are West, Tom Keane, Cynthia Weil, and David Foster. An earlier version circulated on West's Get Well Soon... mixtape in December 2002. The single peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned West a 2005 Grammy nomination for Best Rap Solo Performance, announcing one of the defining Chicago artists of his generation.

The record

• Year: 2003
• Work type: song

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 2 — 747 Program, Wave 9; second Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Through the Wire entity in the live graph at 3,603 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5926 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — Scan Tail Wave 1 packet ordered reserve, position 1 of 20 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #322). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — lead single of a Chicago artist's debut album; Black Chicago music core scope. Vital status: n/a (Work). Creator Kanye West LIVING (verified in the homed record CTL-E-0057). STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Released September 30, 2003 (Wikipedia); recorded November 2002, weeks after the October 23, 2002 crash; peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100; Grammy nomination for Best Rap Solo Performance at the 2005 ceremony. MEDIA: photo HELD (“Through the Wire” single artwork or a 2003-era press portrait of Kanye West named as candidate; no file-page verification in this pass); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5926-through-the-wire.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Non-place record; no map attaches at the entity layer.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No recording with a CTL rights basis was staged in this pass.)

Relationships

• Kanye West — authored by
  “Through the Wire” was written and performed by Kanye West as his debut solo single (2003).

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Through the Wire" (accessed 2026-10-16) — September 30, 2003 release on Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam, November 2002 recording with jaw wired shut after the October 23, 2002 crash, Chaka Khan sample, writers West/Keane/Weil/Foster, number 15 Hot 100 peak, 2005 Grammy nomination — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_the_Wire (primary source · build store)
• Revolt, "Chaka Khan says Kanye West sampling her on 'Through the Wire' was 'stupid'" (June 27, 2019) — independent entertainment-press account of the “Through the Fire” sample at the song's center — https://www.revolt.tv/article/2019-06-27/93813/chaka-khan-says-kanye-west-sampling-her-on-through-the-wire-was-stupid (build store)
• https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-college-dropout-mw0000326741 (verification source · master store)

Evidence note (master store)

Artist: Kanye West. Title: 'Through the Wire' — the fetched AllMusic biography calls it the lead single for West's debut album The College Dropout and describes it as inspired by his 2002 car crash, recorded with his jaw wired shut. The fetched biography states the single was 'breaking big-time at the tail-end of 2003'; The College Dropout itself was released 2004-02-10 on Roc-A-Fella (AllMusic album page).

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Record CTL-E-5926 · Combined Graph record U-00452 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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