Never Let Me Down (Kanye West song)

[9] However, it was also revealed by Bolton that he didn't know who Kanye and Jay were when he first found out that they were trying to license "Maybe It's the Power of Love", until his daughters told him: "They're like the biggest rappers in the business, dad."

[13] The 2002 car accident involving West is referenced by him with the line: "I know I got angels watching me from the other side", which is a subject he mostly touches on in debut single "Through the Wire".

[3] "Never Let Me Down" received positive reviews from the majority of music critics, though most tended to have praise for West's work and express negativity towards Jay's contributions.

Paul Cantor of Billboard had mixed views towards the song, describing Jay's presence as being where he "phones in a verse about making number one albums", but praising the rest of it for being "about overcoming racism and undefeatable odds".

[18] Rob Mitchum of Pitchfork felt negatively about Jay's contributions too, labelling his appearance as him "already sounding groggy from retirement".

[19] Jay's content was viewed as paling in comparison to that of West by Dave Heaton of PopMatters, since he described the song as "where Jay-Z rhymes about attaining status and power, Kanye one-ups him with a show-stopping attack on racism and meditation on death".

[26] The video of West rapping "Never Let Me Down" to Pharrell from 2003 actually surfaced online within the same week as the tenth anniversary of The College Dropout and it was regarded as a classic track by this point.

[11] When Ben Westhoff of The Guardian published an article in April 2015 that ranked the album at number one in West's discography, the song was the end of what he called "as powerful a sequence as I've ever heard on record".

[28] Ivy blogged in celebration of The College Dropout's 13th anniversary on February 10, 2017, and shared the original page with his lyrics scribbled down, alongside various notes.

On March 22, 2005, The College Dropout Video Anthology was released, which features a bonus audio CD with a cinematic version of "Never Let Me Down" as a track on it.