Kanye West Research Paper

Kanye West And His Influence On The Music Business

When you hear the name Kanye West do you think of the loud, opinionated, award-show crashing, arrogant rapper? Do you think of the guy whose only achievement is writing ‘Gold Digger’? Or do you think of the extremely successful artist of a generation, 6 out of 7 of his solo albums debuting at #1, 21 Grammys (more than ‘The Beatles’, more than Michael Jackson), arguably the most important mainstream artist of our time. No matter your opinion on Kanye, no one can deny his success. Kanye has been a staple in the music industry for years, and will continue to be one for many more.

Before Kanye West was the artist he is today, he was born in Atlanta, Georgia on June 8th, 1977 to the late Donda West, an English Professor, and Ray West, a Black Panther-turned-Photojournalist-turned-Christian Marriage Counselor. His parents divorced when he was three, the same year Kanye and his Mother moved to Chicago. At the age of 10 Kanye and his mother moved to China for a year. After returning from china, kanye began to focus on his passions. (1) He wanted to design video games “ I wanted to do everything: I wanted to design the characters, design the backgrounds, I would be studying different things and try to come up with a new idea,” Kanye said. (Borus 1)

Kanye found friends interested in music too, writing his first rap song at 13, asking his mother to pay studio time to record it. Donda wasn’t willing to pay the price most studios charged to record the song, but Kanye found one that charged only $25 an hour. At 14 kanye bought his first sample machine, saving $500 and recieving $1000 from his mother, enough to cover the cost of the machine. (2) “In the seventh grade, i figured if i wanted to be a rapper, i had to have something to rap over. So I started doing beats” (Borus