EARLY LIFE
West was born on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia.[c] After his parents divorced when he was three years old, he moved with his mother to Chicago, Illinois.[13][14] His father, Ray West, is a former Black Panther and was one of the first black photojournalists at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Ray later became a Christian counselor,[14] and in 2006, opened the Good Water Store and Café in Lexington Park, Maryland, with startup capital from his son.[15][16] West's mother, Donda C. West (née Williams),[17] was a professor of English at Clark Atlanta University and the Chair of the English Department at Chicago State University before retiring to serve as his manager. West was raised in a middle-class environment, attending Polaris School for Individual Education[18] in suburban Oak Lawn, Illinois, after living in Chicago.[19] At the age of 10, West moved with his mother to Nanjing, China, where she was teaching at Nanjing University as a Fulbright Scholar.[20] According to his mother, West was the only foreigner in his class, but he settled in well and quickly picked up the language, although he has since forgotten most of it.[21] When asked about his grades in high school, West replied, "I got A's and B's."[22] West demonstrated an affinity for the arts at an early age; he began writing poetry when he was five years old.[23] West started rapping in the third grade and began making musical compositions in the seventh grade, eventually selling them to other artists.[24] West crossed paths with producer No I.D., who became West's friend and mentor.[25]: 557 After graduating from high school, West received a scholarship to attend Chicago's American Academy of Art in 1997 and began taking painting classes. Shortly after, he transferred to Chicago State University to study English. At age 20, he dropped out to pursue his musical career.[26] This greatly displeased his mother, who was also a professor at the university, although she would later accept the decision.[25]: 558
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MUSICAL IMPACT
West is among the most critically acclaimed popular music artists of the 21st century, earning praise from music critics, industry peers, and cultural figures.[428][429] In 2014, NME named him the third most influential artist in music.[430] Billboard senior editor Alex Gale declared West "absolutely one of the best, and you could make the argument for the best artist of the 21st century."[214] Sharing similar sentiments, Dave Bry of Complex Magazine called West the twenty-first century's "most important artist of any art form, of any genre."[431] The Atlantic writer David Samuels commented, "Kanye's power resides in his wild creativity and expressiveness, his mastery of form, and his deep and uncompromising attachment to a self-made aesthetic that he expresses through means that are entirely of the moment: rap music, digital downloads, fashion, Twitter, blogs, live streaming video."[432] Joe Muggs of The Guardian argued that "there is nobody else who can sell as many records as West does [...] while remaining so resolutely experimental and capable of stirring things up culturally and politically."[433] Rolling Stone credited West with transforming hip-hop's mainstream, "establishing a style of introspective yet glossy rap" while deeming him "a producer who created a signature sound and then abandoned it to his imitators, a flashy, free-spending sybarite with insightful things to say about college, culture, and economics, an egomaniac with more than enough artistic firepower to back it up."[434] Writing for Highsnobiety, Shahzaib Hussain stated that West's first three albums "cemented his role as a progressive rap progenitor".[435] AllMusic editor Jason Birchmeier described West as "[shattering] certain stereotypes about rappers, becoming a superstar on his own terms without adapting his appearance, his rhetoric, or his music to fit any one musical mold".[2] Lawrence Burney of Noisey has credited West with the commercial decline of the gangsta rap genre that once dominated mainstream hip-hop.[436] The release of his third studio album has been described as a turning point in the music industry,[437] and is considered to have helped pave the way for new rappers who did not follow the hardcore-gangster mold to find wider mainstream acceptance.[438][439][440] Hip-hop artists like Drake,[441] Nicki Minaj,[442] Travis Scott,[443] Lil Uzi Vert,[444] and Chance the Rapper[445] have acknowledged being influenced by West. Several other artists and music groups of various genres have named West as an influence on their work.[f]
ACHIEVEMENTS
West is the fourth-highest certified artist in the US by digital singles (69 million).[463] He had the most RIAA digital song certifications by a male artist in the 2000s (19),[464] and was the fourth best-selling digital songs artist of the 2000s in the US.[465] In Spotify's first ten years from 2008 to 2018, West was the sixth most streamed artist, and the fourth fastest artist to reach one billion streams.[466] West has the joint-most consecutive studio album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 (9).[467] He ranked third on Billboard's 2000s decade-end list of top producers[468] and has topped the annual Pazz and Jop critics' poll the joint-most times (four albums) with Bob Dylan.[469] West has been nominated for 75 Grammys, out of which he has won 24.[470] He has been the most nominated act at five ceremonies,[471] and has received the fourth-most wins overall in the 2000s.[472] In 2008, West became the first solo artist to have his first three albums receive nominations for Album of the Year.[473] West has won a Webby Award for Artist of the Year,[474] an Accessories Council Excellence Award for being a stylemaker,[475] International Man of the Year at the GQ Awards,[476] a Clio Award for The Life of Pablo Album Experience,[477] and an honour by The Recording Academy.[478] West is one of eight acts to have won the Billboard Artist Achievement Award.[479] In 2015, he became the third rap act to win the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award.[4] West's first six solo studio albums were included on Rolling Stone's 2020 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[480] Entertainment Weekly named The College Dropout the best album of the 2000s,[481] Complex named Graduation the best album released between 2002 and 2012,[482] 808s and Heartbreak was named by Rolling Stone as one of the 40 most groundbreaking albums of all time,[483] The A.V. Club named My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy the best album of the 2010s,[484] Yeezus was the most critically acclaimed album of 2013 according to Metacritic,[485] and The Life of Pablo was the first album to top the Billboard 200, go platinum in the US, and go gold in the UK, via streaming alone.[486][487]