Kanye Omari West was born on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised primarily in Chicago, Illinois, where his mother, Donda West, was a professor of English at Chicago State University. He grew up in a middle-class household defined by his mother's intellectual ambitions and fierce belief in his gifts. He began rapping at age nine and producing beats in his early teens, attending the American Academy of Art and Chicago State University before dropping out to pursue music β a decision his mother eventually championed, writing a memoir called Raising Kanye about their relationship.
West began producing for other artists before Roc-A-Fella Records, producing Jay-Z's The Blueprint (2001) β widely considered one of the greatest hip-hop albums in history. Despite his production success, label executives were skeptical of his viability as a rapper. His response was to survive a car accident that nearly killed him in 2002 and record 'Through the Wire' with his jaw wired shut in the hospital. The College Dropout (2004) was a critical and commercial triumph, establishing him as both one of the greatest producers and one of the most distinctive voices in hip-hop.
His subsequent discography β Late Registration, Graduation, 808s & Heartbreak (which changed hip-hop's emotional vocabulary), My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of the century), Yeezus, The Life of Pablo β is one of the most artistically restless bodies of work in contemporary music. He has won twenty-four Grammy Awards. His Yeezy brand partnership with Adidas became one of the most commercially successful celebrity fashion collaborations in history before being terminated following his antisemitic statements in 2022.
West's ENFP nature is the source of both the extraordinary creative gifts and the extraordinary public controversies. ENFPs experience the world with unusual intensity and have difficulty moderating self-expression to what is socially appropriate β their authentic feeling tends to overflow whatever container convention provides. West's famous interruptions, his declarations of genius, his political views, his religious conversion, his mental health crises β all are ENFP energy at its extreme: the near-total absence of the filtering mechanism that most people deploy between internal experience and external expression. At his creative peak, this quality produced genuinely revolutionary art; at its worst, it has produced genuine harm.
