Kanye West

        

For a parody artist with a similar name, see Kanye East.

Ye (born Kanye Omari West; June 8, 1977 (1977-06-08)), known professionally by his birth name, is an American musician and entrepreneur. He's best known for his hip-hop and rap music while combining autotune and sampling, beginning his career in the early 2000's. He ran for president in 2020 as an Independent, but only gained a little over 60,000 votes.

Ye is the founder of Yeezy, GOOD Music, and Donda Academy. He has had collaborations with Adidas, Nike, Balenciaga, and many other companies.

Ye is widely regarded as one of the controversial, greatest and most influential musicians of all time.

Early life

Some sources claim that Ye was born on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia, while some other ones claim he was born in Douglasville, a small city west of Atlanta. He grew up on the Chicago Southside with his mother Donda West, a Chicago State University English professor who died in 2007. Ye spent a year in China but forgot how to speak Chinese.

Channel

Ye created his channel on January 10, 2006, and uploaded his first video on June 16, 2009, showing a song featuring Jamie Foxx. The channel is currently semi-active. His most viewed music video is Stronger, featured on Graduation.

Personal life

In 2002, Ye got into a car crash and broke his jaw. He later recorded his first single, "Through The Wire", describing the crash with his jaw shut. The track was nominated for Best Rap Solo Performance.

Ye's mother Donda died in 2007 due to heart problems following a plastic surgery operation. This, combined with a breakup with then-fiancée Alexis Phifer, caused him major emotional pain and resulted in the release of his fourth studio album "808's and Heartbreak." He later would name his creative company Donda in memory of his mother, and in 2021 would release an album called "Donda", which samples her speeches throughout the album.

Ye is open about being a Christian, and made an album titled, Jesus Is King. The album later won a Grammy Award. He later announced that he is working on Jesus Is King Part II, with producer Dr. Dre, however is not currently available on streaming services.

Ye has 4 kids with model Kim Kardashian. They had a divorce in 2021. In 2016, Ye was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which has influenced much of his work after 2008. Kanye has been vocal about divorcing Kim since 2020 and has criticized her and her mother Kris Jenner for attempting to admit him to a mental facility, and for opening a TikTok account for his daughter North, which he publicly objected to.

On his 2020 campaign rally, Ye stated that Kim almost had an abortion with his first child, North West. He later broke down in tears. In 2021, TikToker Ava Louise claimed that Kanye had an affair with Jeffree Star. Ava later apologized. Later that year, He changed his legal name to "Ye", an album of the same name was released in 2018. It was approved by the judge on October 19, 2021.

He dated model Julia Fox from January to February 2022. He also dated Amber Rose in 2008.

He married Yeezy architect Bianca Censori in January 2023. Due to their openness regarding sex and Bianca often seen in clothing with little to no clothing, this has resulted in massive controversy, most notably an investigation by Italian police accusing them of having sex on a boat.

Controversies

Statement on George W. Bush

From August 23 to August 31 in 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit parts of the south-west in the United States, mainly New Orleans. The hurricane caused 1,300 deaths and $145 billion in damages. On September 2, NBC hosted the hour-long segment, A Concert for Hurricane Relief to raise money for the victims. Ye had appeared in one segment alongside actor and comedian, Mike Myers. Ye had said that he hated the way black people were portrayed in the media as looters or murderers, wanting to help them through donating since he feels sympathy for them. He also says that the then 43rd president, George W. Bush doesn't care about black people. He was immediately cut off by NBC who switched over to Chris Tucker.

Ye's comments were widely mocked by the media and online, with some noting that Myers looked surprised when Ye attempted to call out Bush. NBC would claim that Ye had went off script and were disgusted by his comments. In 2010, Bush had responded to Ye in an interview with Matt Lauer by saying it was the lowest point in his presidency, but he has learned to forgive him. Later on, Ye said that he was frustrated with Bush's choices during his presidency but wasn't justified in calling him racist and didn't use the correct words. In 2014, when Myers was interviewed by GQ, he said that he gave that reaction because he thought Ye was true since he thought the government responded more to white people stuck on roofs than black people, though he doesn't think Bush is racist.

Anti-Semitism

He later went onto multiple talk shows such as Tucker Carlson Tonight, Piers Morgan Tonight and Drink Champs to further defend his statements. This resulted in massive backlash by Jewish groups, who pressured Drink Champs into deleting the episode. During the interview, Ye claimed that Jewish people control everything, and tend to benefit themselves to the detriment of everyone else. He also accused record executive Lyor Cohen of profiting off of violent imagery portrayed in rap music and that he encourages it among his artists,[1] and accused Jared Kushner and his brother Josh of being handlers to Donald Trump, as well as profiting more on his ex-wife's SKIMS line than him, which he helped to create.

Soon after, Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti Defamation League and Ari Emmanuel (CEO of Endeavor), began calling for Ye's business deals to be terminated. CAA, Vogue, Balenciaga and many other companies severed ties from him, however Adidas initially refused to, until more pressure was added after a display by the Goyim Defense League in Los Angeles, where they displayed a banner stating "Kanye was right about the Jews".

In April 2023, Ye posted on Instagram that he no longer hates Jewish people after watching 21 Jump Street, a movie that stars Jewish actor Jonah Hill Feldstein, also known as Jonah Hill. He also says no one should discriminate on different races and religions, since Jesus Christ was Jewish.

After the interview, he let Alex, Nick Fuentes and Ali Alexander (who were all banned from Twitter) send tweets from his phone. He later posted an image on his Twitter of a Star of David with a swastika etched inside of it, with the caption "Love Everyone". His Twitter account was re-suspended immediately afterwards, with Elon Musk commenting that "he had once again violated Twitter's rule against incitement to violence".

On December 8, 2022, Kanye's honorary degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago was rescinded following the controversy.

In February 2025, Ye made multiple posts on X praising Hitler, with one of them admitting that Ye loves him. In that same month, on February 9, Ye made a Super Bowl commercial promoting his website. However, when viewers go on the website, it displays a shirt with a swastika, named "HH-01." Two days later, Shopify, the host of the Yeezy website, shut down the website.

Balenciaga

Kanye worked with Balenciaga on multiple fashion shows, but they dropped him due to pressure from CAA and the Anti-Defamation League. This didn't stop him from wearing their clothes in public, even after Balenciaga themselves became the center of controversy after publishing adverts featuring children. He later denounced Denma and Balenciaga in late 2023 during a Vultures rant.

Allegations of sexual harassment

On June 4, 2024, Lauren Piscotta, a former Yeezy employee would sue Ye for sexual harassment, breach of contract, fraud, unpaid wages, emotional distress, and wrongful termination. In the lawsuit, she claims Ye send her lewd texts and images. She also claims Yeezy terminated her without proper reason, and failed to pay her a contractually obligated severance package. Other former employees have come to speak out against Ye as well, however Ye has denied these claims.

Incest relationship

On April 21, 2025, Kanye released a song titled Cousins, which was a collaboration with Dave Blunts on the album Cuck. In the song, Kanye confesses to having an incestous relationship with an unnamed male cousin when they were both children, he says that the relationship went on for 6 to 8 years and it started when they found a g-y magazine in his mother Donda's closet. They tried to re-enact oral sex as depicted in the magazines. Kanye's relationship with his cousin lasted up until kanye was 14. When his cousin was 17, he got a life senctence in jail for murder charges.

Discography

Releases under "Kanye West"

Album	Release
The College Dropout	2004
Late Registration	2005
Graduation	2007
808s & Heartbreak	2008
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy	2010
Watch The Throne (collab. w/ Jay-Z)	2011
Cruel Summer	2012
Yeezus	2013
The Life of Pablo	2016
ye	2018
KIDS SEE GHOSTS (collab. w/ Kid Cudi as KIDS SEE GHOSTS)	2018
JESUS IS KING	2019
Donda	2021
Donda 2	2022
VULTURES 1 (collab. w/ Ty Dolla $ign as ¥$)	2024
VULTURES 2 (collab. w/ Ty Dolla $ign as ¥$)	2024
BULLY	2025
IN A PERFECT WORLD	2025

Quotes

• I always had a Ph.D., a pretty huge dick. (Breathe In Breathe Out)
• Everybody want to know what I would do if I didn't win... I guess we'll never know. (Kanye after winning the Grammy for Best Rap Album for The College Dropout)
• George Bush doesn't care about black people.
• I was drinking earlier, now I'm driving. (POWER)
• 'Cause the same people that tried to blackball me forgot about two things, my Black balls. (Gorgeous)
• I am the number one most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh.
• Now if I fuck this model and she just bleached her asshole and I get bleach on my T-shirt, I'ma feel like an asshole. (Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1)
• People tryna say I'm going crazy on Twitter. (Saint Pablo)
• I like some of the (Lady) Gaga songs, what the fuck does she know about cameras?
• How I ain't bring nothin' to the table when I'm the table? (Eazy)
• Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table.
• Yo Dot (nickname for Kendrick Lamar) I got you. (Like That Remix)

Trivia

• He has collaborated with shoe companies to make the Yeezy Sneakers, with some companies such as Nike and Adidas.
• Ye became a multi-billionaire in mid-2020.
• Ye was at one point friends with Elon Musk, though their friendship has ended in 2024.
• Ye produced five albums in five weeks in 2018, also known as the 'Wyoming Sessions'.
• In 2009, after the Taylor Swift controversy, Ye briefly took a hiatus to Hawaii and Japan to record his fifth studio album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy". Some songs recorded by him began to leak out online, such as the song "Never See Me Again", which was falsely interpreted as a suicide note.
• In 2019, he did a surprise concert at the Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas.

References

Attribution

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