Kanye West Net Worth

Biography of Kanye West

Kanye West is a unique phenomenon not only in American but also in world culture, a talented musician, popular rapper, successful businessman, brawler and misanthrope. His songs are performed by Beyoncé, Madonna, Janet Jackson and other world stars, and the powers that be consider it an honor to shake his hand and invite him to a family celebration. Kanye is married to one of the most beautiful and sexy women on the planet and even talks about plans to take the presidency.

Childhood and youth

Kanye Omari West was born into an intelligent African-American family from Atlanta. The head of the family, Ray West, worked as a photojournalist in a local newspaper, his mother, Donda West, a professor of philology, taught English.

When the boy was three years old, his parents divorced, and his mother moved with her son to Chicago. There she got a job as dean of a local university, and six years later she was sent to China on an exchange program. A ten-year-old boy had to urgently learn Chinese, as he was the only foreigner in the class. To Kanye’s credit, he did an excellent job with this difficult task and after a few months he was already fluently communicating with his peers and teachers.

It is worth noting that the future rapper from early childhood was distinguished by extraordinary abilities, had an excellent memory and developed thinking. At the age of five, he composed his first poem, in the third grade he became interested in music and painting. Then he began to rap and become interested in the life of the local hip-hop community.

When Kanye got his first computer, he was on fire creating his own musical compositions. At the age of thirteen, the teenager recorded his first track “Green Eggs and Ham” in a semi-professional studio, which was the first step towards his stellar career. But world recognition was still too far away, and the young man diligently mastered school knowledge, preparing to continue his education at the university.

After graduating from Polaris High School without triples, Kanye entered the philological faculty of the University of Chicago. But soon the young man realized that music attracted him more than English linguistics, and he abandoned his studies, despite the stormy protests of his mother.

Musical career

At first, the musician focused on writing compositions for other artists, later he took up producing. Beyoncé, Talib Kweli, Janet Jackson, Alisha Keys and many other popular performers performed with his songs. Over time, thoughts about his own solo career began to come to his mind more and more often, especially since there was plenty of musical material.

Paradoxically, the successful composer and producer was not perceived as a rap artist for a very long time, although he repeatedly made attempts to record a solo album. The main reason was his intelligent origin, good education and upbringing received in a professorial family. Usually, rappers were people from poor criminal areas who, in their own skin, experienced difficulties and hardships, which they then decided to tell the world about. In the case of Kanye, the producers feared that his work would be insincere and not touch the heart of the audience.

Everything was changed by a tragic incident, which nearly cost the musician his life. In 2003, West was in a car accident in which he seriously injured his jaw. They put a special splint on his face, with which the musician spent two weeks in the hospital. This incident inspired Kanye to write the song “Through the Wire”, which became the foundation of his debut album “The College Dropout”.

The collection immediately took second place on the Billboard 200 and sold half a million copies in a week. The ice broke, and from that moment on, all subsequent Kanye albums became unconditional hits and sales leaders, and his original experiments and unexpected mixes of styles and genres were highly appreciated by authoritative music critics.

West was inspired by the work of Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie and other legends of world music and was very flattered when he was recognized as one of the greatest artists of the 21st century. He became the record holder for the number of Grammy awards received, was among the best-selling musicians, and his albums were included in the gold list of all time according to Rolling Stone magazine. Kanye has been ranked among the richest and most famous by Forbes several times and has twice been named one of the 100 most influential people on the planet.

In addition to his musical activities, Kanye is well known as a fashion designer. He collaborated with such global brands as Nike, Louis Vuitton and Adidas, and since 2012 he has been producing clothes and shoes under his own brand YEEZY. West is also the owner of the creative agency DONDA, named after his now deceased mother, and the record label GOOD Music.

Kanye allocates huge sums to charity, founded his own fund to combat illiteracy, often helps people affected by wars, epidemics and natural disasters.

Personal life of Kanye West

Kanye has a weakness for spectacular sexy women and from his youth chose his girlfriends with a model appearance. In 2002, he began dating fashion designer Alexis Phifer and was even going to take her down the aisle. But it never came to a wedding, and after a year and a half, the lovers broke up.

From 2008 to 2010, West was in a relationship with model Amber Rose, and in 2012 began to appear in public with Kim Kardashian, socialite and star of the popular reality show. Before that, they had known each other for about five years, but kept their distance and did not show tender feelings for each other. Less than a year later, Kanye proposed to Kim, kneeling in front of her in the presence of relatives and close family friends. Four months before this significant event, the couple had baby Nori (born in 2013), and in May 2014, the lovers played a romantic wedding in Florence.

At the end of 2015, the couple became parents again – their baby Saint was born. In January 2018, the surrogate mother gave birth to Kanye and Kim another daughter, who was named Chi (Chicago), and in May 2019, the couple had another son, who was also born by the surrogate mother.

It seems that peace and tranquility have finally reigned in the family, and in fact, more recently, the spouses were on the verge of divorce. The catalyst was a robbery attack on Kim in Paris, after which she suffered a severe nervous breakdown. The oppressed state of the Kardashians did not affect the rest of the family in the best way, and the situation threatened to come to a standstill. Kanye got hooked on sedative pills and even ended up in the hospital when things went too far. However, the couple managed to overcome the family crisis, which is fully illustrated by the touching footage from the birth of their daughter Chicago, published on Instagram.

Kanye West now

There are many high-profile scandals associated with the name of the rapper, which are associated both with his professional activities and with the habit of openly expressing his opinion, which often contradicts the usual postulates and shocks the public. More than once, Kanye has been sued for copyright infringement, defending the uniqueness of his creative ideas. He was repeatedly involved in fines and correctional labor for skirmishes with paparazzi who unceremoniously invaded his private life. A lot of noise at one time was made by his impartial remarks about Presidents Bush and Obama, and only the lazy did not condemn him for supporting Donald Trump.

In January 2019, West again shocked the American public by announcing that he was going to run for President of the United States in 2024. In July 2024, he confirmed this intention, but shortly after re-announcing his intention to take office, he made several controversial actions. West announced Kim Kardashian’s intentions to have an abortion while pregnant with their daughter North, and also told reporters that he wants to divorce Kim. Kardashian commented on these words, linking her husband’s strange behavior with another exacerbation of bipolar disorder.