Kanye West is a 40-year old multifaceted personality from America. The versatility ranges from rapper, songwriter, singer, record producer, entrepreneur to fashion designer.
The passion for becoming a solo rapper prompted him to release his debut music album titled “The College Dropout” in 2004.
What followed next? The album became a phenomenal success globally, both commercial and critical.
West pursues the expression of candid views about music and they remain controversial but gain the enormous attention of the mainstream.
Globally, West still holds the status of being a popular singer in the 21st century and Kanye West Songs march for Grammy Awards to top it all.
Notable achievements of Kanye West:
Winner of 21 Grammy Awards, the highest ever number of awards than any other singer in the private album music genre.
He is one of the best-selling music artists, possessing that ability to successfully sell 32 million albums.
100 million digital downloads of his music albums, happened globally.
During the years 2005 and 2015, the Forbes magazine announced West as one of the most influential persons
| Album | The College Dropout |
| Release Date | 25 May 2004 |
| Format | 12” single – CD single - vinyl |
| Genre | Hip-hop, gospel |
| Length | 3:13 |
| Writers | Kanye West and Che-Smith |
Jesus Walks is the fourth single song from the maiden album “The College Dropout”. The song enjoyed global appreciation. Apart from this single track, three separate videos were also made for this song. Kanye West paid out of pocket for the second and third versions of the song.
| Album | Late Registration |
| Release Date | July 5, 2005 |
| Format | CD single – digital download |
| Genre | Hip-hop |
| Length | 3:28 |
| Writers | Kanye West, Ray Charles and Renald Richard |
Gold Digger is the first song of Kanye West in the position of a lead artist. Actually, a female singer called Rapper Shawna had to sing the song as per plans but things did not happen accordingly. Jamie Foxx featured in this song as an artist and sung it. Gold Digger earned the status of being the 8th best-selling and the 9th most played song during the 2000s.
| Album | My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy |
| Release Date | October 4, 2010 |
| Format | Digital Download |
| Genre | Hip-hop |
| Length | 9:08 (album), 4:43 (radio edit) |
| Writers | Kanye West, Terrence Thornton, Emile Haynie, Jeff Bhasker, Mike Dean and John Roger Branch |
Runaway song featured one of the biggest hit songs in the year 2010 and received phenomenal critical acclaim. Many publications considered it as one of the best songs of the year. Runaway earned big appeal, due to the nature of the subject, which speaks about the life incidents of Kanye West. Another mentionable point is that the song was used in the promos for the film “The Hangover Part III”.
| Album | Yeezus |
| Release Date | 2013 |
| Format | CD single - Digital Download |
| Genre | Hip-hop |
| Length | 6:00 |
| Writers | Kanye West, Cydel Young, Ross Birchard, Elon Rutberg, Malik Jones, Tony Williams, Mike Dean and Lewis Allen |
Blood on the Leaves got the 89th rank in the hot 100 songs list of U.S. Billboard. Rolling stone rated Blood on the Leaves song as the 20th popular song in its top 100 list. Apart from these rankings, the song received varied reviews.
For instance, New York Times applauded Kanye West for the new musical feel and catchy lyrics in this song.
| Album | The College Dropout |
| Release Date | September 30, 2003 |
| Format | 12” CD |
| Genre | Hip-hop |
| Length | 3:41 (album), 4.34 single version) |
| Writers | Kanye West, David Foster, Tom Keane and Cynthia Weil |
Through the Wire became one of the big hit songs of Kanye West because it covered various topics. The subjects included in the lyrics were: a history of racism, civil rights movement, pop culture and the personal life of West. Good reviews were given by music critics.
During the writing and recording of “Through the Wire” song, Kanye West was suffering from a severe jaw injury. The injury happened to him after he met with a car accident in October 2002.
| Album | Graduation |
| Release Date | July 31, 2007 |
| Format | 12”- CD – Digital Download |
| Genre | Hip-hop |
| Length | 5:11 (album), 4:04 (radio edit) |
| Writers | Kanye West, Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Edwin Birdsong |
The song “Stronger” contains some lyrical lines, written based on the inspiration of German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. Despite several hours of work, spent on the creative aspect of this song the final mix got completed in just 16 hours.
Salient features of this song were:
- The guerilla-style filming technique deployed for filming of the music video
- Filming of the music video, done before the song completion.
| Album | My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy |
| Release Date | November 25, 2010 |
| Format | CD –single -- Digital Download |
| Genre | Hip-hop |
| Length | 4:59 |
| Writers | Kanye West, Jeff Bhasker, Malik Jones and Warren Trotter |
- The song features Elton John, the British pop and rock singer/songwriter.
- Serena Williams and some other athletes appeared in the Gatorade Bars TV Commercial “All of the Lights” and sang this song’s tune.
- “All of the Lights” won Grammy Awards during 2012 under two categories, the Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.
- Kanye West got the Best Rap Album for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He also received the Best Rap Performance for his collaboration with Jay-Z. “Otis.”
| Album | Graduation |
| Release Date | February 18, 2008 |
| Format | 12" single*CD single*digital download |
| Genre | Hip-hop |
| Length | 3:23 |
| Writers | Kanye West, Chris Martin and Warryn Campbell |
- The song is about Kanye West’s hometown, Chicago
- Hype Williams directed the music video “Graduation” under which Homecoming comes as one of the album’s songs
- The music video also features cameo appearances by West’s labelmate Common and Chris Martin
- This song is a personification of the windy city, Chicago with the character name, Wendy
- The origin of this song is from “Home”, a song that was used by Kanye West for his mix tape “Adjustment Vol 1” for which he worked along with John Legend
| Album | 808s & Heartbreak |
| Release Date | November 5, 2008 |
| Format | Digital Download – CD Single |
| Genre | Pop – R&B |
| Length | 3:31 |
| Writers | Kanye West, Ernest Wilson, Scott Mescudi and Malik Jones |
- Kayne West created an animated video for this song along with director Hype Williams
- Kayne West told “The Observer” magazine that the chorus portions of this song relate to his personal life tragedies
- West used the autotune software for this song instead of rapping
- Right at debut itself, this song was ranked fourth on the Billboard Hot 100 chart
| Album | Late Registration |
| Release Date | May 31, 2005 |
| Format | Digital download – 12” maxi single |
| Genre | Hip-hop |
| Length | 3:58 |
| Writers | Kanye West, Devon Harris, John Barry and Don Black |
- “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” won The 2006 Grammy award for best rap song
- Filming the music video of this song, from the “Late Registration” Album was shot in black and white
- The song pertains to Kanye West’s label, “Roc-A-Fella” records
- The focal object of this song is to show child slave labour in African countries like Sierra Leone. Children are taken for work as slave labour to work in the diamond mines
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