Kanye West Essay

I. Intro
a. “i hate when im on a flight & I wake up with a water bottle next 2 me like oh great now i gotta be responsible for this water bottle”
b. Kanye is an award winner, an innovator in the music industry, and a prick.
c. I’ll talk about how Kanye’s upbringing as a child and in the music industry have led to his success, his drive, his confidence, and how that has influenced myself.
II. Background
a. Kanye didn’t grow up hustling.
b. His parents were both well educated, middle-class people living in the suburbs of Chicago, IL through Kanye’s childhood.
c. He lived in Nanjing, China when he was 10 with his mother.
d. He got A’s and B’s in school.
e. Kanye showed an interest in art and poetry from a young age.
f. His mom paid for time in the studio recording raps.
g. He met No I.D., who ended up teaching Kanye how to make beats and to sample.
h. He entered college after high school. At 20 he found it took too much time away from music. He dropped out.
III. Early Career (producing)
a. He produced for many local artists and didn’t get a big break through the mid and late-nineties.
b. In 2001 he earned his shot with his significant work on producing Jay-Z’s The Blueprint, considered one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time.
c. His next break was when he was involved in a near fatal accident.
c.i. His jaw was severely injured and needed to be wired shut. While wired shut, he recorded “Through the Wire,” which helped to lay the foundation for his debut album.
IV. Kanye’s Albums And Professional Career
a. “As his career progressed throughout the early 21st century, West shattered 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.” – Jason Birchmeier (Allmusic Editor)
b. His first album, The College Dropout, was widely acclaimed. The message for the album was to “make your own decisions. Don’t let society tell you, ‘This is what you have to do.’”
c. His second album, Late Registration, peaked at number 1. So did the next, Graduation.
d. His fourth studio album, 808s and Heartbreak, was a turn from a rap album to a singing venture.
d.i. It was inspired by the death of his mother.
d.ii. It was his first huge step in a different direction.
d.iii. His controversy at the MTV VMAs taking the mic from Taylor Swift came around the same time as this album.
e. He flipped another 180 with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
e.i. Yet again, highly successful. Very maximalist.
e.ii. He and a large crew worked day and night holed up in Hawaii.
f. Yeezus again changed his sound. He was determined to “undermine the mainstream.”
f.i. Extremely polarizing album.
f.i.1. (also fantastic)
V. Miscellaneous
a. Has been into fashion much of his career.
b. He created a philanthropy to battle dropout and illiteracy rates.

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