West premiered the song for Hot 97 on April 20, 2005, before it was sent to US mainstream radio stations the following month as the album's lead single, through Roc-A-Fella and Def Jam.

"Diamonds from Sierra Leone" reached number eight in the United Kingdom, alongside attaining top 20 positions in Denmark, Finland, Ireland, and Norway.

In the video, scenes of children experiencing rough diamond mining in Sierra Leone are displayed, being accompanied at points by a De Beers commercial and cuts of West wandering around Prague.

American record producer and composer Jon Brion had achieved fame from his distinctive production work for artists and film scores for auteurs, though was lacking experience in hip hop.

West enlisted him to work on Late Registration, marking Brion's first involvement in a hip hop project; the decision created confused reactions across his fanbase.

Brion imagined people commenting that West has "gone off his rocker" and envisioning him making "an art record with some crazy, left-field music guy", clarifying this not to be "the case whatsoever".

[2] John Barry and Don Black also received songwriting credits because of the sample of singer Shirley Bassey's titular theme song for the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, which they wrote.

[10] The rapper cited memories of Jay-Z's Blueprint Lounge Tour (2001) and recollections of being among the movement of his record label Roc-A-Fella as inspiration for the song, adding that he still maintained a friendship with former chief executive officer Dame Dash.

Writing for The Guardian, Alexis Petridis noted it showcases West's unique role of the only popular rapper taking on politics by drawing "the links between the jewellery trade and Sierra Leone's civil war", being impressed with his attempt to discuss topics outside of his wealth and how funny "shooting people is, which is more than you can say for his contemporaries".

[17] AllMusic's Andy Kellman picked the song as an example of West using identical lyrical strategies to his debut studio album The College Dropout (2004), citing how he goes from "boastful to rueful".

[25] The staff of the Manchester Evening News saw the song as being built by reworking Bassey's "vocal styling" from "Diamonds Are Forever" with "an electro-tinged twist", assuring that the lyrical content is "simply toasting West's stardom".

[26] In a review for Uncut, Simon Reynolds noticed that the song's "giddy ascending chorus" demonstrates West pledging true loyalty to Roc-A-Fella after the label saved him from uncertain times, as well as commenting on the rapper's chants seemingly "showing off his new status symbols" less than "his aesthetic riches".

[15] Rolling Stone critic Rob Sheffield depicted that the song weirdly spins a James Bond theme into "an ominous lament for slave labor".

[12] Veteran critic Robert Christgau wrote in a review for The Village Voice that "the treated John Barry" of the song is certain to "sneak up over the long haul".

Club was less enthusiastic, saying it comes from the type of "larger-than-life emotions" that only sampling "Diamonds Are Forever" can channel properly and captures West's "manic exhilaration".

[28] Rabin further saw the song as "about the world racing along way too fast" and the sort of "scary sustained high" that appears to be never-ending, though felt "it echoes the less ambivalent joy" of fellow album tracks "Touch the Sky" and "We Major".

[30] The track was named by Slant Magazine as the 86th best single of the 2000s decade; Cataldo directed praise towards the "Diamonds Are Forever" sample and West's skill "at transposing first-world guilt into the personal sphere".

[7] At the beginning of the music video, children are portrayed going through the horrific experience of diamond mining in Sierra Leone while watched closely by abusive supervisors.

Footage of the children mining are juxtaposed with shots of West rapping in the empty streets of Prague, as well as a De Beers diamond commercial showing a wealthy man proposing to a woman with a ring that turns into blood after being placed on her finger.

[63] West performed "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" as the opener to his set at the 2006 Coachella Festival, where he wore a T-shirt in tribute to American trumpeter Miles Davis.

The performance saw him accompanied by a full-sized harp and a large group of tall violinists that wore golden ball gowns, and was reacted to positively by the crowd.

[70][71] West performed a medley of hits that included the song and "Jesus Walks" (2004) at the 2009 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, London, while rocking his customary aviator shades and black suit jacket.

[73] West performed a shortened version of it as part of a medley of over 10 songs for 12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief at Madison Square Garden in New York City on December 12, 2012, while rocking a Pyrex hoodie and leather kilt.

[80] Fellow rapper Lupe Fiasco raps over the song's instrumental on "Conflict Diamonds", which was released on his second mixtape Fahrenheit 1/15 Part II: Revenge of the Nerds (2006).

Rabin believed the "Jay-Z-blessed remix" evokes West's common theme of "the tension between criticizing consumerism and feeling powerless" to avoid the temptations.

[29] Blender's Jonah Weiner named the remix among the tracks on Late Registration to download, saying West broadcasts" his appalled discovery" of the diamond industry that includes "African warlords" and "the miners they mutilate".

[83] Sean Fennessey of Pitchfork felt the remix provides "some admirable if dubious political grandstanding", though remembered "you gotta pay the cost to be the boss" when any large task is taken on.

[87] In a negative review for Prefix Mag, Matthew Gasteier complained that West sounds as if he was given "a five-minute rundown on the issue" to prepare him for writing the remix.

[89] It was ranked at number 55 on a list of 2005's greatest songs by Blender, with the staff writing that "a 007 sample" is deployed "to bitch-slap De Beers" and Jay-Z utilizes his best skill by rhyming about himself.

"[85] Memphis Bleek criticized Jay-Z's shoutout of him on it when speaking to This Is 50 in 2014, expressing a distaste for how "a stamp" was put on his career since people allegedly saw things "like [Jay] is just taking care of me and I'm just chilling and I'm not working".