"Rolling Stone" encapsulated West by calling him "as interesting and complicated a pop star as the 2000s produced—a rapper who mastered, upped and moved beyond the hip-hop game, a producer who created a signature sound and then abandoned it to his imitators, a flashy, free-spending sybarite with insightful things to say about college, culture, and economics, an egomaniac with more than enough artistic firepower to back it up." AllMusic editor Jason Birchmeier writes of his impact, "As his career progressed throughout the early 21st century, West shattered certain stereotypes about rappers, becoming a superstar on his own terms without adapting his appearance, his rhetoric, or his music to fit any one musical mold." West maintained a preppy fashion sense that helped expand hip-hop's definition of masculinity. Nielsen concedes that West "definitely made it OK to be a little bit of a weirdo. He said when he came out that he wasn't a thug. He was the kid who went to school, his mom was a college professor. He definitely challenged some of the authenticity that had to be there at the moment."