Kanye West Biography

Kanye West was born on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, to Dr. Donda C. Williams West and Ray West. His father was one of the former Black Panthers and the first ever black photojournalist at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His mother was an English Professor at Clark Atlanta University and also the Chair of the English Department at Chicago State University. His parents divorced when he was only 3 years old and he moved with his mother to Chicago, Illinois.

West was raised in a humble way and belonged to a middle-class background. He did his schooling at Polaris High School in Illinois. He shifted to Nanjing, China at the age of ten when his mother was asked to teach at Nanjing University as part of an exchange program. He was creative from an early age. He wrote his first poetry at the age of 5. Around the same time, he started to rap and had composed his own music by the time he was in the seventh grade.

Kanye West started to get more and more involved in the hip-hop scene of Chicago and when he was thirteen, he wrote a rap song called Green Eggs and Ham. He persuaded his mother to pay him money so that he can start recording in a studio. Although his mother did not want this for him, she started accompanying him to a small basement studio in the city. There, West met The Godfather of Chicago Hip Hop, No I.D who soon became West’s mentor.

In 1997, West was offered a scholarship from Chicago’s American Academy of Art and he took upon it to learn the art of painting and then took the transfer to the Chicago State University to pursue English literature. At the age of twenty, he decided to drop out of college to pursue his dream of becoming a rapper and musician.

From the mid-90s until the early 2000s, Kanye West was involved in small-time music production projects. He made music for local artists and was also a ghost producer for Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie. West got the much-awaited opportunity in 2000 when he became the producer for artists on Roc-A-Fella Records. He produced hit singles for famous singers like Common, Ludacris, Cam’Ron, etc. In 2001, world-renowned rapper and entertainment business tycoon Jay-Z asked West to produce many tracks of his hit album The Blueprint.

Around this time, he continued to produce tracks for singers and rappers like Alicia Keys and Janet Jackson. Subsequently, he became a successful producer but his true desire was to become a rapper. It became a very challenging situation for him to get acceptance as a rapper and crack a record deal. In 2002, Kanye got the breakthrough that he was looking for in an unusual fashion. He met with an accident while coming back from a long recording session in L.A., as he fell asleep at the wheels. While he was in the hospital, he wrote down the song Through the Wire, which was recorded at Record Plant Studios. The song later became a part of his debut album, The College Dropout.

In 2004, Kanye West released his first album, The College Dropout, which became an instant hit among music lovers. It sold 441,000 copies in its first week. It secured the number two position on Billboard 200. The number called Slow Jamz in the album featured Twista and Jamie Foxx alongside West. It was voted the top album of the year by two big music publications. Another track from the album called Jesus Walks showcased West’s emotions about faith and Christianity.

In 2005, West collaborated with American film composer Jon Brion, who co-executively produced many tracks on the album, to work on West’s new album Late Registration. He hired a string orchestra for the album and afforded the cost with the money he had made from The College Dropout. It sold 2.3 million copies in the United States. In the same year, West announced that he will release his Pastelle Clothing line in 2006, but it was canceled in 2009.

In 2007, Kanye West released his third studio album Graduation. He released it at the same time 50 Cent’s Curtis came out. But Graduation outsold Curtis by a huge margin and secured the number one position on the US Billboard 200. It sold about 957,000 copies in its very first week. A track called Stronger became a huge hit.

In 2008, West released his fourth studio album 808s & Heartbreak. The album topped the Billboard charts and sold 450,000 copies during its first few weeks. The inspiration for this album came from the sad demise of West’s mother Donda West and the break-up with his fiancée Alexis Phifer. The album is said to have encouraged hip-hop music and other rappers to take more creative risks with their productions. In the same year, West announced that he would open 10 Fatburger restaurants in Chicago. The first one was opened in Orland Park in 2008.

In 2009, West teamed up with Nike to release his own shoes. He named them Air Yeezys and released another version of it in the year 2012. Also in 2009, he came out with his new shoe line for Louis Vuitton and released it during Paris Fashion Week. Kanye West also designed shoes for Bape and Giuseppe Zanotti.

In 2010, West’s fifth studio album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was released and it topped the Billboard charts in its first few weeks. It was considered a genius work by music critics. It got rave reviews from all over the world and included hits like All of the Lights, Power, Monster, Runaway, and such. This album went platinum in the United States.

In 2013, West came up with his sixth album Yeezus and took a more non-commercial approach to make it. He incorporated genres like Chicago Drill, Dancehall, Acid House, and Industrial Music in the making of this album. The album was released in the month of June and has received rave reviews from music critics.

On February 14, 2016, Kanye West released his seventh album titled The Life of Pablo.

He came up with his eighth album Ye on June 1, 2018. In August 2018, he released the non-album single XTCY.

In January 2019, Kanye West started his weekly Sunday Service orchestration. It includes soul variations, West's songs, and songs by other celebrities. In January 2022, he announced the release of his eleventh studio album, Donda 2. While the album received a mixed response from critics, it topped several music charts across the globe including the ‘US Billboard 200,’ ‘UK R&B Albums Chart,’ ‘UK Albums Chart,’ ‘Canadian Albums Chart,’ and the ‘Australian Albums Chart.’

In August 2023, reports came out that his eleventh album was in the works. In October, Billboard announced that Kanye West had finished recording his collaborative album with ‘Ty Dolla Sign’ and would soon be released.

For his album, The College Dropout, West grabbed 10 Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year and Best Rap Album. He won a Grammy for the Best Rap Album category. His album was certified triple platinum in the United States.

In November 2007, Kanye West’s mother Donda West died of heart disease right after she underwent a plastic surgery procedure. She was 58 years old at the time. This left West in turmoil, as he was extremely close to his mother; she had released her memoir before her death called Raising Kanye: Life Lessons from the Mother of a Hip-Hop Superstar.

Kanye West was in an on-and-off relationship with designer Alexis Phifer for four years before getting engaged to her in August 2006. The engagement lasted 18 months before the pair called it quits in 2008.

He was in a relationship with model Amber Rose from 2008 to 2010.

In April 2012, West began dating Kim Kardashian. They got engaged in October 2013 and got married on May 24, 2014, at Fort di Belvedere in Florence, Italy.

West and Kim Kardashian have four children: daughters North West (born June 2013) and Chicago West (born January 2018 via surrogate) and sons Saint West (born December 2015) and Psalm West (born May 2019 via surrogate).

In February 2021, Kardashian filed for divorce from West. In 2022, West began dating actress Julia Fox before breaking up with her in less than two months. In January 2023, reports came out that West had married architectural designer Bianca Censori in an unofficial ceremony. Later, Bianca’s sister, Angelina Censori, confirmed the reports of the marriage.

In August 2021, he filed a request to change his legal name from ‘Kanye Omari West’ to ‘Ye.’ A month later in October, his request was finalized, and he officially adopted his new name.