By: Shabab Rahman, Grade 9
Now unlike most early 2000’s rappers, Kanye wasn’t born in a hood like our favorite hood rappers like Dr.Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and etc. He was born in the suburbs of Chicago with his single mother Donda West. He was everywhere when growing up like being a basketball player, a musician, then an artist. But this was all through highschool. When he went to college after his mom forced him too, he went to a college for visual arts. Even though he did enjoy it, he felt that it wasn’t his passion and had a real connection to music at a very young age. He soon dropped out of college with his mothers disapproval and followed his pursuit of beat making and soon rap to create the star, the icon we know today.
After making the big decision and dropping out of college he went to pursue his taste of rapping and beats production. All day just sitting in his chair with the piano and making beats wasn’t the best job at first. At the time no one really recognized his talent. Meaning that anyone really cared for his talent. Instead of Kanye letting the music industry chasing him he instead went to every music record deal company and played his music to everyone in the building. Just to get their opinion on his production and to make it better. But no one bought his beats. It was just quiet for Kanye. Then this new rapper from the East coast started a record deal company. Now this artist had a similar taste in music just like Kanye. Instead of asking him how to make beats for this artist, Jay-Z asked Kanye to come over to New York where his record company, Rocefella records was at. He asked Kanye, play the beats. Kanye delivered and the whole team at Rocafella were astonished by his work. They liked that it introduced retro vibes to the music. Instead of paying Kanye for the beats, Jay brought Ye to the team. He was their new and best member for making their beats. Kanye later produced most of Jay-Z’s 2001 album the “Blueprint”. This quickly became a fans favorite and gave Kanye the extra attention he needed to play his music. But remember that no one in Rocafella didn’t want Kanye to start rapping because they thought since Kanye wasn’t from the streets but from the suburbs it wouldn’t fit their group. But they kept Ye for a bit in the back just to make beats for them. But that didn’t stop Kanye. He instead created his own label and put out an album on his own record to prove to anyone that a producer can be a rapper. Kanye proved them all wrong, especially those in Rocafella which caused some beef (disagreement) between the two best friends.
I would say that Kanye pioneered where rap and hip hop is today. The reason why is that Ye was and still is an innovator. He realized that people won’t always listen to music for the lyrics but instead the beat. The beat is what makes you attracted to the song. So if you make the beats better you gain more of a cult following like me as an example to enjoy every song that artist might release. However his career has been a bunch of low lows and high highs. Even though Kanye had an amazing introduction to his career he kind of ruined it after the Taylor Swift altercation at the Grammys. But he made it up after releasing his fifth album My beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Then he became the obnoxious Kanye that we all know him for. But he later found himself when he rediscovered God and went back to his senses. Other than changing and dominating the music industry he also played a big role in fashion especially with his sneakers called Yeezy. This is how he made his net worth 6.6 billion dollars and became the richest black man in the US at that time. Now all Kanye does is play more of a role in fashion but still making big changes in music till this day which I am currently waiting for.
Ever since Kim Kardashian divorced Kanye, he’s been going on rants to Pete Davidson. Other than that music wise he released this stem player which plays any song however you want that is only available on his website. He was originally going to release Donda 2 on February this year 2022 but couldn’t due to his family issues. But on the upside he has been releasing more clothes for us Yeezy fans to wear all season. Other than that Kanye has been good. He’s been chilling for a bit and been on the down low. Ye just wants us to innovate our minds and listen to the future. That’s what Ye’s all about.
Source #1https://people.com/tag/kanye-west/
UCLA Community School Times 