Music label, collaborations with other unaffiliated musicians, and preview versions of certain songs that would later appear on Graduation.

[7] Stylus Magazine awarded Can't Tell Me Nothing an A− rating and complimented it for expressing a high quality in comparison to most promotional mixtapes, claiming, "Even with a few duds, this might be the album of the year."

"[4] Rock critic Robert Christgau dictated, "Get this while you can from the mixtape man no matter how much of it is destined for the real album.

"[2] URB wrote, "Although the scatterbrained way Kanye chooses to present himself will continue to face scrutiny and divide opinion, any critic would be hard pressed to deny his talent.

Whatever persona he adopts, whether relatively restrained or unsurprisingly in your face, the artist rarely fails to engage.