Kanye Omari West was born on June 8th, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia. Kanye moved to Chicago at a young age with his parents. His father is an award winning photojournalist and his mother was an english teacher.
In highschool Kanye met a producer named NO I.D. who was working with fellow chicago artist Common.
Kanye learned how to produce albums in NO I.D.'s basement. Eventually he would buy his own equipment and work on his own beats in his bedroom. Kanye worked dead-end jobs to support himself and enrolled in to college to develop his skills in art.
In 1998 Kanye West sold his first major beat to Jermaine Dupri for the album Life in 1472, which caught the eye of other hip hop artists.
He soon dropped out of college to pursue his musical career and began supplying beats to hip hop's big names.
In 2001 he headed to the east-coast to assist in the production of Jay-z's Blueprint album and began recording his own rap.
In 2002 Roc-a-fella records signed Kanye, and he began working on his debut album. On october 23rd 2002 Kanye was involved in a near fatal car accident, which fractured his jaw in three places.
This was an eye opening experience for him, thus it inspired him to write and record "through the wire" two weeks later while his mouth was still wired shut.
In 2004 he released his debut album, College Dropout which went 3x platinum with the help of three singles. He made an impression on all music channels and the billboard charts. "Through The Wire", "All Falls Down" and "Jesus Walks". Jesus Walks won him two grammy awards Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song.
In 2005 Kanye West followed up with Late Registration, which also went 3x platinum. He released four hot singles from this album, Diamonds from Sierra Leone, Gold Digger, Heard 'Em Say, Touch the Sky.
Kanye performed and appeared as guest speaker on NBC's A Concert for Hurricane Relief. Kanye made this statement: "I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, 'They're looting.' You see a white family, it says, 'They're looking for food.' And, you know, it's been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there.
So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help - with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way - and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us! (Black People)" and then added at the end "George Bush doesn't care about black people".
In 2006 Kanye West has brought forth his GOOD Music label, which includes John Legend, GLC, Consequence, Really Doe, SA-RA Creative Partners and Farnsworth Bentley. Kanye won three grammys in the 2006 awards show, Best Rap Album, for Late Registration Best Rap Song, for "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" (from Late Registration) Best Rap Solo Performance for Gold Digger (from Late Registration). Kanye will release his new clothing line Pastelle Clothing in the spring.
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Kanye Omari West was born on June 8th, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia. Kanye moved to Chicago at a young age with his parents. His father is an award winning photojournalist and his mother was an english teacher.
In highschool Kanye met a producer named NO I.D. who was working with fellow chicago artist Common.
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