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Kanye West

A fashion designer, a record producer, and one of the most famous rappers of all time. Kanye West has earned many accomplishments, he has sold 140 million albums, and 20 million singles worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Kanye has also won 21 Grammy Awards making him the most awarded rapper of all time. In today's topic, we will discuss Kanye West's Background, his early career, His Yeezy brand of shoes, and how he single-handedly influenced the course of hip-hop, and Rap culture to change.

A Bit of Background

West was born on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia, but his birthplace is given by some sources as Douglasville, a small town west of Atlanta. His parents divorced when he was three years old and he moved to Chicago with his mother. West moved to Nanjing, China, when he was 10 years old, where his mother was teaching English as part of an exchange program. West wrote a rap song called "Green Eggs and Ham" at the age of 13 (the title of Dr. Seuss's best-selling children's book). At 20, West dropped out of college to pursue his musical dreams, disappointed his mother, who was also a professor.

Musical Career

Kanye began his early musical career in the mid-90s as a beat producer, mainly creating beats for thriving local artists. Later on, he ultimately developed a new style of beats that involved speeding up vocal samples from classic soul records. But at the age of 19, when he produced eight tracks on Down to Earth, the 1996 debut album of a rapper named Grav, he received his first official production credit.

West got his first big break later on when he began to produce tracks for artists on Roc-A-Fella Records including Jay-z and many others. West attained recognition and fame and is commonly credited with revitalizing Jay-Z’s career with his contributions to rap Mogul’s influential 2001 album The Blueprint. The Blueprint is consistently ranked as one of the greatest hip-hop albums ever made, and also the major financial success of this album generated a notable amount of interest for Kanye West as a producer. The production style of Kanye on The Blueprint changed the manner in which hip-hop was produced. The album was the first to use sounds that were more sample-reliant. Only Blaze and Kanye himself created The Blueprint. As the 51st best album of the 2000s, "Takeover" was ranked and is generally regarded as one of the most significant rap songs ever. Although his rapid success as a producer west’s true aspiration was to become a successful rapper.

At the beginning of his brand-new fresh rapping career, West had a tough time finding a record company to sign a deal with him, almost getting rejected by every company he went to for not meeting the “Gangster look” that has been all-around mainstream hip-hop at the time. Eventually, Kanye was able to sign a deal with Roc-A-Fella Records. Famous rapper Jay-z that was under the same record company as Kanye West, later admitted that Roc-A-Fella Records was reluctant to support Kanye as a rapper at first. A year later, on October 23, 2002, West's breakthrough came when, after operating late, he fell asleep at the wheel while driving home from a California recording studio, causing a head-on collision with another car. The crash left him with a broken jaw that had to be wired shut during reconstructive surgery. The crash broke the other driver's legs. West was inspired by the accident. Two weeks after being admitted to the hospital, despite his jaw still wired shut, he recorded a song at the Record Plant Studios. The composition, "Through the Wire" reflected the experience of Kanye after the car accident, and helped lay the foundation for his debut album, as, according to West, "All the better artists have expressed what they were going through."

Years later, Kanye scored a goal after releasing his first album called, The College Dropout. The Album had been delayed 3 times from its initial release date in August 2003, until it got released in February 2004, skyrocketing to number 2 on the Billboard’s 200 in no time, as his debut single, “Through The Wire”, which was inspired by a car crash Kanye has been through during his early days as a rapper, peaked at number 15 on the Billboard’s hot 100 for 5 weeks straight.

Fashion

After building a huge and strong fan base, Kanye West decided to enter the fashion business. Initially, in 2006, Kanye West modeled a shoe for Adidas, but it was never released. He designed shoes for Louis Vuitton, Giuseppe Zanotti, and Nike as well. His relationship with Nike lasted five years and led to three models of Yeezy sneakers being released. In 2013, after they declined to pay him royalties for his designs, he formally left Nike. He reached out to Adidas, who decided to make royalties available to him. In February 2015, the "Yeezy" collaboration formally premiered, a year and three months after the announcement of the collaboration.

Summary

In a summary, Kanye West has sold 140 million albums and 20 million singles worldwide. He has won 21 Grammy Awards making him the most awarded rapper of all time. He is widely credited with revitalizing the career of Jay-Z with his contributions to The Blueprint, the groundbreaking 2001 rap album by Mogul. Kanye was a major influence to the change in Hip-Hop and Pop. He has also collaborated with Adidas and Nike, two major footwear companies, to launch his footwear brand called Yeezy. Kanye has achieved many accomplishments throughout his career. Starting as a record producer for local flourishing artists, to an influential rapper which shifted the course of Hip-Hop and Rap culture.