Kanye West
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
From out of left field (i.e., Chicago, anything but a hip-hop hotbed), West was an unlikely sensation and more than once defied adversity. Like so many others who were initially inspired by Run-D.M.C., he began as just another aspiring rapper with a boundless passion for hip-hop, albeit a rapper with a Midas touch when it came to beatmaking. And it was indeed his beatmaking skills that got his foot in the industry door. Though he did quite a bit of noteworthy production work during the late 90s, it was his work for Roc-a-Fella at the dawn of the new millennium that took his career to the next level. Alongside fellow fresh talent Just Blaze, West became one of The Rocs go-to producers, consistently delivering hot tracks to album after album. He first caught everyones ear in 2001 when he laced Jay-Zs earth-shaking Blueprint album with Takeover and Izzo (H.O.V.A.). Both songs were enormous successes, partly so because of Wests trademark beatmaking style, which was largely sample-based -- in these brilliant cases the former track appropriating snippets of the Doors Five to One, the latter the Jackson 5s I Want You Back.
More high-profile productions followed, and before long word spread that West was going to release an album of his own, on which hed rap as well as produce. Unfortunately, that album was a long time coming, pushed back and then pushed back again. It didnt help, of course, that West experienced a tragic car accident in October 2002 that almost cost him his life. He capitalized on the traumatic experience by using it as the inspiration for Through the Wire (and its corresponding video), which would later become the lead single for his eventually released debut album. That debut album, The College Dropout (2004), was continually delayed while West continued to churn out big hits for the likes of Talib Kweli (Get By), Ludacris (Stand Up), Jay-Z (03 Bonnie & Clyde), and Alicia Keys (You Dont Know My Name). Then, just as Through the Wire was breaking big-time at the tail end of 2003, another West song caught fire, a collaboration with Twista and comedian/actor Jamie Foxx called Slow Jamz that gave the rapper/producer two simultaneously ubiquitous singles and a much-anticipated debut album. As with so many of Wests songs, these two were driven by somewhat recognizable sample-based hooks -- Chaka Khans Through the Fire in the case of Through the Wire, and Luther Vandross A House Is Not a Home in the case of Slow Jamz.
In the wake of his breakout success, West earned a whopping ten nominations for the 47th annual Grammy Awards, held in early 2005. The College Dropout won the Best Rap Album award, Jesus Walks won Best Rap Song, and a songwriting credit on You Dont Know My Name had West sharing the Best R&B Song award with Alicia Keys and Harold Lilly. Later in the year, he released his second solo album, Late Registration, which met with enormous success, hit the top of the charts, and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in early 2006. That same year, the live album Late Orchestration: Live at Abbey Road Studios found West performing his hits with a 17-piece string orchestra. The album and accompanying DVD were only released in Europe.
