Kanye West: The Ultimate Outlier

"For me to say I wasn't a creative genius, I would just be lying to you and to myself."

Kanye West was born June 8, 1977, growing up in Chi-Town with his single mother, Dr. Donda C.(who was the first African-American woman to be Chair of the English Department at CSU!). Mr. West even spent time in China with his mother at the age of ten while she taught at Nanjing University. Kanye displayed a love for the arts from the start, writing poetry and drawing throughout his school-age years. By the age of thirteen, he was writing his own compositions and his mother facilitated his passion by paying $25 an hour for Kanye to record in a studio. In this way, he was raised in concerted cultivation, with an incredibly supportive parent. After graduating from high school, Kanye went on to go to art school, studying painting, and later went to CSU to major in English. But after a few semesters, Kanye West realized college wasn't getting him where he wanted to go, and so he dropped out, much to his mother's disappointment. His mother later reflected, "It was drummed into my head that college is the ticket to a good life... but some career goals don't require college. For Kanye to make an album called College Dropout it was more about having the guts to embrace who you are, rather than following the path society has carved out for you." And goddamn, does that sentence embody exactly who Kanye is. 

"I refuse to accept other people's ideas of happiness for me.
As if there's a 'one size fits all' standard for happiness."

After his decision to drop out of college, Kanye started his music career as a producer, working with people like Jay-z, Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and Janet Jackson. Here he began making connections within the music industry, and though West was successful in the realm of producing, his aspiration was to become a rapper. In his song Last Call, he talks about the plight he endured in order to get signed with a label. But eventually, Mr. West did get signed with Roc-A-Fella, the record label founded by Jay-z, and here began the making of ten years of music courtesy of Yeezy. 

Kanye West is possibly the most incendiary, loud, passionate, and confident voices in pop culture at the moment. And this is exactly why I love him. In his incredible interview with Jimmy Kimmel, he stated, "You gonna love me, you gonna hate me, but Imma be me." To me, Kanye West's message of confidence and creativity overrides any immature comments he's made at award shows or in front of cameras. While he doesn't always know how to express himself in a way that's easy for everyone to grasp and digest (a bit of a lack of practical intelligence), his positivity always leaves me itching to create, to love myself, and to give something to the world beyond myself.

Throughout the ten years he's spent creating his own music, Kanye has broken down many paradigms within the genre of rap, the music industry, and the world of celebrities as a whole. There's no doubt he's an innovative and creative artist. His debut album College Dropout was quickly followed by the founding of GOOD (Getting Out Our Dreams) Music, Kanye's own record label. He then went on to create Late Registration, Graduation, 808s and Heartbreak, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (considered by many his magnum opus), and Yeezus. But West is something of a renaissance man; his efforts have expanded to many mediums including films, fashion, philanthropy, and making his own creative agency. Whether you love him or hate him, Mr.West is an incredibly successful man and he has no shortage of creative intelligence. Not only is Kanye commercially successful, but he's a living testimony of one of my favorite quotes: "An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection-and on his own terms, not anyone else's." Kanye is perceived by many to be arrogant and pleased with himself, but I'd argue the opposite; he's constantly trying to evolve as an artist, a person, and pushes his own limits-never settling for what's been done. "Now I could let these dream killers kill my self esteem/Or use my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams." 

Kanye and Aziz being the best

Kanye West has an incredible amount of talent, and not unlike the examples we've read about in Outliers, his success is not only due to this talent, but his opportunities, support, and ability to make it in the world of artists striving for perfection just like him. Kanye is an inspiration to me (and I don't use that word lightly because it sounds cheesy as hell), and to so many others. "I'm just here to make good music and make people feel good... I say things the wrong way a lot of times, but my intention is always positive. I want to help the world. I want to make people's lives easier."

Now someone get Mr.West a damn croissant.