Kanye West
Kanye Omari West(born June 8, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American record producer and rapper based in Chicago, Illinois.
After attending a local art school and then Chicago State University, West dropped out and began working on his music career. Even while attending school, West produced for local acts. He gained some fame by producing hit singles for major Hip-Hop/R&B artists, including Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, and Ludacris. West himself worked on his solo album for a long period of time, having the release pushed back on multiple occasions. Due to his appearance and overall style, West struggled to find a way to get his own voice on record. Multiple record companies put him aside due to the fact that West is not a former ’street hustler’, and does not wear the orthodox hip-hop apparel and would therefore not be as marketable as an artist portraying the “typical image” of a rapper. A car crash on October 23, 2002 left his jaw fractured in three places. With his mouth still wired shut and only weeks after his accident, he recorded “Through The Wire”. “Through The Wire”, which sampled Chaka Khan’s classic track “Through The Fire”, would eventually become his lead single from The College Dropout, which was released on Roc-a-Fella Records in February 2004. A later single from the album, “Jesus Walks”, would become a major success, and later a staple of his benefit performances such as at the Live 8 concert, Philadelphia (with an all-Japanese-girls string section), and gather him still further mainstream exposure when it was aired frequently as the background music in trailers for the 2005 film Jarhead.
On August 30th, 2005, Kanye West released his second album Late Registration. The first two singles were “Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)” (which contained samples from Shirley Bassey’s “Diamonds Are Forever”) and “Gold Digger” featuring Jamie Foxx. The album went on to sell over 904,000 copies in its first week. West announced that his 3rd and 4th albums will be titled Graduation and A Good Ass Job, respectively.
West has collaborated with numerous artists, most notably with rapper Twista on songs such as “Overnight Celebrity” and “Slow Jamz” (also featuring Jamie Foxx) - the latter would reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart, becoming the first #1 hit for all artists involved. Kanye also features on Brandy’s single, “Talk About Our Love”. Others whom West has collaborated with include Jay-Z, Talib Kweli, Dilated Peoples, Mariah Carey, Miri Ben-Ari (whose violin arrangements featured heavily on The College Dropout), and John Legend (who also features on West’s first album, providing soulful background vocals). Kanye West is also credited with revitalizing and bringing new life into the careers of such rappers as Common and Twista.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West
