Kanye West is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential Grammy-Award winning rapper, record producer, and fashion designer. He gained global recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the early 2000s.
Who is Kanye West?
Kanye West is one of the most popular hip hop musicians of all time. In 2004, West gained recognition when he released his debut studio album, The College Dropout, and founded his record label GOOD Music the same year. He released his fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) and sixth album Yeezus (2013), to critical and commercial success, drawing inspiration from maximalism and minimalism respectively. West is also well known for his marriage to Kim Kardashian and forays into fashion.
Early Life
Kanye West was born on June 8, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia. His parents divorced when he was three-years-old, and West’s mother moved with him to Chicago, Illinois. His father, Ray West, was a photojournalist at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and was also a former Black Panther. Ray later became a Christian counselor. With capital support from his son, Ray opened the Good Water Store and Cafe in Lexington Park, Maryland in 2006. West’s mother, Dr. Donda C. West was the Chair of the English Department of Chicago State University and also a professor of English at Clark Atlanta University. After retiring, Donda became her son’s manager before she died at the age of 58 from heart disease after cosmetic surgery in 2007. Her death affected West both musically and personally.
Education
After relocating to Chicago with her mother, West attended Polaris School for Individual Education in suburban Oak Lawn, Illinois. He moved to Nanjing, China with his mother, where she was teaching at Nanjing University as a Fullbright Scholar. According to his mother, West settled in well and quickly picked up the language, despite being the only foreigner in his class.
West developed a keen interest for arts at an early age. He began writing poetry at the age of five. He had a passion for drawing and music when he was in the third grade. By the time West was in the seventh grade, he had already started rapping and making musical compositions which sold to other artists. He wrote a rap song known as “Green Eggs and Ham” when he was thirteen years old and persuaded his mother to pay for time in a recording studio.
Donda supported and encouraged West from when he was young. He accompanied him to the studio for the recording. West crossed paths with producer/DJ No I.D., who became his mentor and taught West how to sample and program beats. West received his first sampler when he was fifteen years old.
In 1997, West received a scholarship to attend Chicago’s American Academy of Art, just after graduating from high school. He began taking painting classes and transferred to Chicago State University to study English shortly after. At the age of 20, West dropped out of college to pursue his musical dreams. Her mother was not happy about it. However, she later stated, “It was drummed into my head that college is the ticket to a good life … but some career goals don’t require college. For Kanye to make an album called College Dropout it was more about having the guts to embrace who you are, rather than following the path society has carved out for you.”
Early Work: 1996-2002
At the age of nineteen, Kanye West produced eight tracks on Down to Earth, the 1996 debut album of a Chicago rapper called Grav. He acted as a ghost producer for Deric “D-Dot” Angelettie for a time, so he was not able to release a solo album.
West began producing for artists on Roc-A-Fella in 2000. He achieved recognition through his major contributions to Jay-Z’s 2001 album The Blueprint. The critical and financial success of Jay-Z’s album generated much interest in West as a producer. The Blueprint is constantly ranked among the greatest hip-hop albums. West also produced music for other artists like Cam’ron, Freeway, and Beanie Sigel while serving as an in-house producer for Roc-A-Fella. He also crafted hit songs for Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and Janet Jackson.
The College Dropout and Late Registration
Towards the end of 2002, West announced that he was working on an album called The College Dropout, whose overall theme was to “make your own decisions. Don’t let society tell you, ‘This is what you have to do.’” He recorded the remainder of the album in Los Angeles while recovering from the car accident he was involved in while driving home from a California recording studio after working late. His perfectionism led to The College Dropout release postponed three times from its initial date in August 2003.
The College Dropout was finally released in 2004. It was ranked among the great hip-hop works and debut albums by artists and also voted the top album by two major music publications. The album also sold 2.6 million copies and made West a star.
The money he got from his commercial success enabled West to hire a string orchestra for his second album Late Registration. His second album sold over 2.3 million units in the United States alone towards the end of 2005. Industry observers considered Late Registration as the only successful major album release of the fall season at the time.
“Graduation”
Graduation was West’s third album. It gathered major publicity and outsold rapper 50 Cent’s Curtis by a large margin, selling 957,000 copies in its first week and debuting at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. “Stronger,” the album’s lead single, garnered his third number-one hit as “Graduation” continued the string of critical and commercial successes.
“Stronger,” samples French house duo Daft Punk. The lead single has been credited for playing a key role in reviving disco and electro-infused music in the late 2000s. Ben Detrick of XXL commented on the outcome of sales competition between West’s Graduation and 50 Cent’s Curtis, writing, “If there was ever a watershed moment to indicate hip-hop’s changing direction, it may have come when 50 Cent competed with Kanye in 2007 to see whose album would claim superior sales.”
808’s Heartbreak and VMAs Controversy
In November 2007, West’s mother died of complications from cosmetic surgery involving breast reduction and abdominoplasty. This really affected Kanye West. Worse, West and fiancee Alexis Phifer broke their long-term on-and-off relationship and ended their engagement. West decided to sing using the voice audio processor Auto-Tune to express his emotions since he couldn’t do so through rapping.
West announced his fourth album, “808s & Heartbreak” during the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. In November 2008, “808s & Heartbreak” was released to capitalize on Thanksgiving weekend. The album contains themes of love, loneliness, and heartache as well as extensive use of the eponymous Roland TR-808 drum machine. It got slightly more mixed reviews than his previous albums. However, the lead single “Love Lockdown” demonstrated outstanding chart performances. The single debuted at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and became a “Hot Shot Debut.”
West displayed some controversy the following year at the 2009 MTV Music Awards, leading to widespread outrage throughout the music industry. He crashed the stage and grabbed the microphone from Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech for “Best Female Video.” West proclaimed Beyonce’s video for “Single Ladies,” which had been nominated for the same award, as “one of the best videos of all time.” Based on his actions, West was withdrawn from the remainder of the show. In response to the controversy, West’s Fame Kills tour with Lady Gaga was canceled.
Fashion
Kanye West took a break from music to focus on fashion after the Swift debacle. He had already been collaborating with labels like Nike and A Bathing Ape on limited-edition sneakers since 2006. In 2009, West reportedly interned at Gap, and later Fendi, to gain experience. In 2011, West launched his first collection in Paris, though was widely panned. He announced that he would no longer be showing in Paris after his second collection a year later received a lukewarm reception. “You can’t just dump some fox fur on a runway and call it luxury,” said Long Nguyen, style director of Flaunt magazine. West gave a wounded-sounding speech at the show’s after-party. “Please be easy,” he said. “Please give me a chance to grow.”
In 2013, West signed a $10 million deal with Adidas and collaborated with the French label APC on a capsule collection in 2013. He launched his first apparel collection, Yeezy Season 1, with the brand in October 2015. In February 2017, his season 5 collection won praise from Anna Wintour; “I liked it a lot,” Wintour told the New York Post. “A little bit more focus sometimes we’ve seen from him.”
“My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”
West released his fifth studio album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” in November 2010. The album received widespread acclaim from critics, many of whom stated that it solidified his comeback and considered it his best work. Dark Twisted Fantasy features a maximalist philosophy and contains themes of celebrity. The record included Billboard hits “Power,” “Monster,” and “Runaway,” and the international hit “All of the Lights.” West embarked on a festival tour in 2011 to commemorate the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He performed and headlined several festivals, including; The Big Chill, Live Music Festival, Austin City Limits, SWU Music & Arts, Oya Festival, Flow Festival, Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Essence Music Festival, which was described by The Hollywood Reporter as “one of greatest hip-hop sets of all time.”
In August 2011, West released the collaborative album Watch the Throne with Jay-Z. The album became one of the few major label albums in the Internet age to avoid a leak.
“Yeezus”
On June 18, 2013, West’s sixth album Yeezus was released. Although it became his sixth consecutive number one debut, the album marked his lowest solo opening week sales. Dam Jam issued “Black Skinhead” to radio in July 2013 as the album’s lead single. To support Yeezus, Kanye West announced in September 2013 that he would be headlining his first solo tour in five years, accompanied by fellow American rapper Kendrick Lamar. The tour garnered rave reviews from critics.
Rolling Stone described the tour as “crazily entertaining, hugely ambitious, emotionally affecting, and most importantly, totally bonkers.” Writing for Forbes, Zack O’Malley Greenburg praised West for “taking risks that few pop stars, if any, are willing to take in today’s hyper-exposed world of pop,” describing the show as “overwrought and uncomfortable at times, but (it) excels at challenging norms and provoking thought in a way that just isn’t common for mainstream musical acts of late.”
Marriage to Kim Kardashian
Kanye West began his relationship with Kim Kardashian in 2012 and got engaged on October 21, 2013, after West proposed at the AT&T baseball stadium in San Francisco. The couple got married on May 24, 2014, in the historic Fort di Belvedere in Italy. Andrea Boceli sang as Kardashian walked down the aisle, in front of guests that included the designer Rachel Roy, the film director Steve McQueen, the tennis champion Serena Williams, and music stars legend Tyga and Lana Del Rey, Rick Rubin, and Q-Tip. Kanye and Kim have four children: daughter North (born June 15, 2013), son Saint (born December 5, 2015), and another daughter born via surrogate on January 15, 2018. In May 2019, they welcomed their fourth child, son Psalm, via surrogate. Kim Kardashian filed for a divorce in February 2021.
The Life of Pablo and Tour Cancellation
West’s seventh album, The Life of Pablo garnered more controversy during the run-up. West hit the guidelines for a series of controversial tweets before the album release on February 14, 2016. The controversial tweets included one that clearly indicated Bill Cosby, on trial for drugging and raping women, to be innocent. West also started a beef with the rapper Wiz Khalifa, who he believed to have criticized his wife, Kim– “I am your OG and I will be respected as such,” West tweeted. West also apologized to the basketball legend Michael Jordan for appearing to diss him in his lyrics.
The album incorporated a vast array of styles, sounds, and influences, from trap to gospel to Auto-Tune crooning, to avant-pop, classic soul and dancehall. It was a huge triumph and another change of direction that covered a much broader sonic sweep than Yeezus. Guest vocalists included Kid Cudi, Rihanna, Chance the Rapper, Desiigner, and Frank Ocean. The Life of Pablo became West’s sixth solo album in succession to debut at No.1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
West embarked on the Saint Pablo Tour in support of The life of Pablo in August 2016. Following the Paris robbery of several of his wife’s effects, West postponed several dates in October, and on November 21, 2016, he canceled the remaining dates on the Saint Pablo Tour, due to a week of no-shows, rants about politics, and curtailed concerts.
2020 Presidential Run
Kanye West announced on Twitter on July 4, 2020 that he would be running in the 2020 presidential election. Forbes interviewed West on July 7 regarding his presidential run, where he stated that his running mate would be Michele Tidball, Wyoming preacher, and that he would run as an independent candidate under the “Birthday Party.” When asked why he chose the name, Kanye responded “Because when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday.” West also said he no longer supported Trump because he “hid in a bunker” during the COVID-19 pandemic. He added, “You know? Obama’s special. Trump’s special. We say Kanye West is special. America needs special people that lead. Bill Clinton? Special. Joe Biden’s not special.” Numerous political pundits speculated that West’s presidential run was a publicity stunt to promote his latest music releases.
On July 19, 2020, West held his first campaign rally in Charleston, South Carolina. With “2020” shaved into his head, West spoke about Planned Parenthood, marijuana and slavery, among other subjects, in his speech that lasted over an hour.
Kanye West eventually conceded and alluded to a presidential run in 2024.