#15 Kanye West: Lessons in Business and Self Confidence.
“But I’m a champion, so I turned tragedy to triumph,
Make music that’s fire, spit my soul through the wire”
– Through the Wire, Kanye West
Last time I wrote about Tyra Banks, Oprah, and Tyler Perry. We examined lessons in business, personal branding, and the importance of owning everything. Today we are going to take it up a notch. We would be looking at someone who has had (and still has) a defining impact on music, fashion, and culture.
Yes, you guessed it. Kanye West.
KANYE WEST
Kanye West is a Grammy Award- winning recording Artist, Producer, Film Director, Fashion Designer, and Billionaire.
Kanye was the son of Ray West, a former Black Panther and Dr Donda C. West, an English professor, and Chair of the English Department at Chicago State University. When he was three years old, his parents divorced, and he lived with his mother afterwards.
From an early age, Kanye displayed an affinity for the arts; he began writing poetry when he was five years old and had a passion for drawing and music in third grade. At age thirteen, Kanye wrote a rap song called “Green Eggs and Ham” and persuaded his mother to pay for time in a recording studio to record it. Eventually he met producer/DJ No I.D. who became a mentor and friend, who first taught Kanye how to sample and produce beats at age 15.
Kanye received a scholarship to attend Chicago’s American Academy of Art in 1997, where he took painting classes. He later transferred to Chicago State University to study English. But his busy class schedule was detrimental to his work in music.
So, at age 20 he dropped out of college to pursue his musical dreams.
To get by he worked in Telemarketing, Gap, and selling insurance. Giving out his beats for free. He struggled, unsigned and constantly rejected. Even his exes dismissed his raps, which left him in tears.
In the year 2000, Kanye got his big break producing for Jay-Z on his 2001 successful album The Blueprint. Consistently ranked among the greatest hip-hop albums, its success generated substantial interest in West as a producer. He went on to produce records and write for Beanie Sigel, Freeway, Ludacris, and Alicia Keys.
JOURNEY: FROM PRODUCER TO RAPPER
Despite his success as a producer, Kanye always wanted to be a rapper. Kanye struggled to be accepted and get a record deal because he did not portray the ‘gangster image’ prominent in hip hop at the time.
Everyone saw him as a producer and wanted him to stick to that. Reluctantly, Roc-A-Fella Records signed Kanye to make sure they didn’t lose him as a producer.
The Accident
On October 23, 2002, while driving home from a late-night recording session, Kanye fell asleep at wheel and had a head-on collision with another car. The crash left him with a shattered jaw, fractured in three places, which had to be wired shut in reconstructive surgery.
Two weeks later he recorded Through the Wire with his mouth still wired shut, so the world can feel his pain.
Driven by this near-death experience, this laid the foundation for his debut album The College Dropout. The theme of which was to “make your own decisions. Don’t let society tell you, ‘This is what you have to do’.”
Released on February 10, 2004, The College Dropout reached №2 on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 441,000 copies in its first week of sales, and won Best Rap Album at the 2005 Grammy Awards. It was named by numerous publications including Rolling Stone and NME, as one the greatest albums of all times.
Proving the doubters wrong, Kanye succeeded and broke through, kicking of a career that would see him become one of hip-hop’s most successful and innovative artists.
In the years since then, Kanye West has released 9 critically acclaimed studio albums (including DONDA that came out last Sun on August 29, 2021) and he has won a total of 22 Grammy Awards with 70 nominations, making him one of the most awarded artists of all time.
LESSON 1: Believe in Yourself
A crucial lesson we can all learn from Kanye West is to Believe in Yourself. Believe that you can achieve your goals, aspirations, and dreams. Having this self-confidence would guide you to act towards achieving those objectives and seeking out the support you need to achieve.
Sometimes, what we call humility is fear, and conformity. The desire to conform to what everyone else is doing and not stand out.
Its Ok to be the greatest you. The time is now.
(Video contains strong language)
LESSON 2: Continuous Learning
At every step of his career, Kanye West embraced learning to hone his craft. To become a rapper, he embraced beat making from an early age. This enabled him to develop a unique style that involved speeding up vocal samples from classic soul records.
He also sought out mentors such as No I.D. and Jay-Z. The result of this continuous learning is the delivery of albums that are subsequently different, innovative, and successful. Interestingly, when you listen to Kanye West speak today, it is obvious he is still learning and growing, especially in Fashion and Design.
“He was just learning how to make music, but he was the most persistent person who I’ve ever met.”
“He was always trying to prove himself, and he kept getting better and better.”
— No I.D.
LESSON 3: Stand up for Something
Everyone would say that Kanye West is controversial, but really, he is speaking up about what he believes in. To succeed, we all need to stand up and stand out, for something we believe in.
#George Bush
On Sept. 2, 2005, Kanye West took the stage at the “Concert for Hurricane Relief”, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. After calling out the double standards in the media’s portrayal of the crises, he stated that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”.
Despite the ensuing frenzy that trailed this statement, it galvanized the govt. to do more, and Kanye West would respond to the ‘blunder’ with the release of Late Registration, and Graduation.
#Taylor Swift
Kanye West most controversial incident was at the 2009 MTV Music Awards. During the ceremony, West crashed the stage and grabbed the microphone from Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech for ‘Best Female Video’ and stated that Beyoncé’s video which was nominated for the same award was “one of the best videos of all time”. This was tactless, and he has since apologized.
In an action that resonates with Kanye West’s, Adele who had just won the 2017 Album of the year award beating out Beyoncé, broke her award in two to share it with Beyoncé, saying:
“I felt like it was her time to win. What does she have to do to win Album of the Year?”
— Adele
JOURNEY: FROM RAPPER TO DEBT, TO FASHION MOGUL
LESSON 4 — Define Yourself
It is important to consciously define your identity and personal brand. This is so no one ‘puts you in a box’. Kanye West experienced this when transitioning from a Producer to a Rapper, and from a very successful rapper to the Fashion Industry. The fashion industry was skeptical that what does he know about fashion, and his music fans wanted him to stick to music.
He followed his dream and in 2009 interned at Fendi in Rome for $500/month. He made cappuccinos, photocopies, and other tasks that you would hardly associate with a 21-time Grammy winner.
He started his own fashion brand which struggled leaving Kanye $53 million in debt. He then pivoted to designing sneakers (another childhood passion) in collaboration with Nike. This led to the wildly popular Nike Air Yeezy sneakers. Despite the success, Nike refused to give him a percentage of the sales because he wasn’t an athlete.
He walked away from Nike and landed a deal with Adidas. Here he got a lucrative deal of 15% on every sale, creative license, and the opportunity to expand into clothing. To put this into context, Michael Jordan’s deal with Nike gives him 5% in royalties.
The Yeezy sneaker line collection pulled in an estimated $1.7 billion in revenue in 2020, earning Kanye $191 million in royalties. He is now worth $1.8 billion, from $53 million in debt!
LESSON 5 — Overcome Life Challenges and Thrive
This is easier said than done.
Kanye West’s album DONDA that came out recently was in memory of his mother who passed away on the 10th of November 2007 from complications with cosmetic surgery. What tore him up the most was that it was him who paid for the surgery. How do you come back from that?
Since then, Kanye has overcome other challenges such as bipolar disorder, Divorce, and rediscovered his Christian faith.
He has channeled these challenges into his work and released a 2020 gospel album titled Jesus is King which won a Grammy for best gospel album, and a new clothing line collaboration with GAP called Yeezy Gap.
SUMMARY
Lesson 1: Believe in Yourself.
Lesson 2: Continuous Learning.
Lesson 3: Stand up for Something.
Lesson 4: Define Yourself.
Lesson 5: Overcome Life Challenges and Thrive.
CONCLUSION
Being Kanye West is about standing up for yourself, your dreams, and what you believe in. We all have dreams and aspirations we want to achieve but as we ‘get older’, we are taught to grow up and we gradually let go of our dreams.
What if we don’t let go. We hold onto them tightly and keep working on them everyday. Aspiring, learning, taking feedback, but pushing forward. Maybe, just maybe we can achieve those dream, inspire someone else, and change the world.
“Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do”.
— Steve Jobs
Hope you found this informative and relevant.
If I was to have an interview with Kanye West, what questions would you like me to ask him?
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