Kanye West

"Ye" redirects here. For the album, see Ye (album).

Ye(Kanye West)
General information
Born	June 8, 1977
Other names	Yeezy, Pablo, Louis Vuitton Don, Rebel
Years active	1996-present
Musical career
Label(s)	GOOD Music, Roc-A-Fella Records, Def Jam Recordings, Universal Music Group, Mercury Records, The Island Def Jam Music Group
Physical characteristics
Gender	Male
Personal relationships
Parents	Donda West, Ray West
Children	North West, Saint West, Chicago West, Psalm West.
Other
Website	https://yeezy.com/

Ye, born and better known as Kanye Omari West, is an American rapper, producer, and entrepreneur. He is known as one of the greatest rappers of all time, pioneering the modern use of samples in music. A prolific artist with over 10 studio albums, Ye is also known for his many other endeavors, including fashion design. Ye is also well-known for his many controversies and beefs with other artists. Since 2022, his reputation has steadily declined, with him promoting antisemitism and losing lucrative deals with companies such as Adidas and the Gap.

Aside from his musical releases, Ye is also well known for his work in the fashion industry, collaborating with Nike, Adidas, Louis Vuitton, and more. His entrepreneurship is also notable, founding his record label GOOD Music in 2004, as well as his creative content company Donda in 2012. He has also ran for president, praised Adolf Hitler, created short films, among other ventures. Ye has also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which he has repeatedly both denied and accepted, as well as suggested that he may be autistic.

Biography

Early life and career

Ye was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and lived in places such as China throughout the early stages of his life. His parents divorced when he was three years old, he moved with his mother to Chicago, Illinois. West briefly lived in China while very young when his mother was teaching abroad. Before his rise to fame, he was a producer for Jay-Z and a rising star in the Chicago rap scene.

College trilogy

Ye beat the odds and found success in transforming from a producer to a rapper. He released three albums (The College Dropout, Late Registration, and Graduation) as planned and met critical success. Although he had some controversial moments in this stage of his career, including his infamous remarks about President Bush not caring about black people, he was still rapidly growing in popularity and gaining new fans.

Crises and mainstream success

In November 2007, Ye lost his mother due to complications from cosmetic surgery. This altered the course of his life, and led him to release his first avant-garde album, 808s & Heartbreak. The following year, Ye interrupted Taylor Swift at the VMAs, a widely condemned move that led him to become a recluse. He succeeded in coming back from this outcast status with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, a project that has appeared on greatest albums of all time lists. He ignited his own label GOOD Music and put out Watch The Throne with Jay-Z and Cruel Summer with the record label. He also put out Yeezus, his second avant-garde piece, in 2013. He later married Kim Kardashian in 2014.

In 2016, he released his seventh studio album, The Life of Pablo, after much delay. While on tour for that album, he suffered from a mental health crisis and was diagnosed with being bipolar at a California hospital. In 2018, he put out a number of short albums, including his solo piece Ye, the Kid Cudi collaboration Kids See Ghosts, and various more. At the end of that year, he led fans on to believe he'd drop Yandhi, although it had not been released and was eventually scrapped. This project has become infamous due to its multiple delays and its eventual scrapping, gaining a cult following within Ye's fanbase and becoming his arguably most coveted unreleased album.

Christian era

Starting in early 2019, Ye rapidly immersed himself in the Christian faith, retooling Yandhi into the religious piece known as Jesus Is King. He also founded the Sunday Service Choir during this time and self-imposed a ban on curse words in his music. His next album, Donda, continued to express his Christian faith, all while covering his high-profile divorce from Kim Kardashian.

Downfall

Ye took out his anger on his divorce onto Pete Davidson, Kim's new partner in early 2022. Since this moment in his career, he has aired out grievances at a number of different people and groups. In October 2022, he shared his most infamous tweet of all time, one in which he said he would go "def con 3" on the Jewish population. Since then, Ye has embraced antisemitic ideologies and ignited beefs with multiple celebrities, including ones that he had closely worked with in the past. Additionally, his high-profile partnerships with companies such as Adidas was terminated as a result of these remarks. His most recent albums have been met with substantially more negative reviews, including Donda 2 (2022), Vultures 1 (2024), and Vultures 2 (2024). He released a project known as Bully and is working on a new project titled CUCK.

Personal life

See also: Views of Kanye West and mental health of Kanye West

Ye identifies as a pro-life Christian. He has said that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2016, but has since suggested that it was a misdiagnosis and that he is autistic instead. He has also self-identified as an addict to alcohol, sex, and pornography, and has said he struggles with suicidal ideation. He has also been involved in a series of legal actions, including lawsuits.

Family

Kanye's mother Donda was an English professor and a large source of inspiration in his life. She passed away due to complications with plastic surgery in November 2007. The rapper has indicated as recently as 2025 that he still feels guilty for encouraging her to undergo the procedure that ended up costing her life.

His father Ray is a Black Panther and one of the first black photojournalists at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He later became a Christian counselor and opened

In April 2025, he claimed that him and an unnamed male cousin had an incestuous relationship while they were both children. That same cousin is in jail for murdering a pregnant woman. His other cousins include musicians The Wrldfms Tony Williams and Devo Harris, as well as Franklin Lawrence and another cousin that stole a laptop from him for money (as talked about on "Real Friends" and "No More Parties in LA.")

Relationships

Ye's first public relationship was with designer Alexis Phifer from 2002 to 2008. They became engaged in August 2006. After an amicable split from Phifer, Ye dated model Amber Rose from 2008 to mid-2010.

In April 2012, Ye began dating reality television star Kim Kardashian, who he had already been long-time friends with. They became engaged in October 2013, and married in Italy the following year. The two have four children: North West (b. June 2013), Saint West (b. December 2015), Chicago West (b. January 2018), and Psalm West (b. May 2019). Their pending divorce was first reported in January 2021 and was finalized in November the following year.

Ye briefly dated actress Julia Fox in early 2022. The following year, Ye became close to and informally married Australian architect (and Yeezy associate) Bianca Censori. Censori has been known to appear in public with very little clothing. The two reportedly separated in February 2025, with Ye spotted in public with a new woman the following month.

Politics

Ye backed Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2012 and 2016 elections, respectively. He started becoming a vocal supporter of Republican president Donald Trump in April 2018, prominently donning the Make America Great Again hat at a White House meeting and at a Saturday Night Live episode that year. Ye briefly walked back his support for Trump in 2022, but has since appeared to support him again. Ye would later have dinner with Trump and white supremacist Nick Fuentes in November 2022, drawing widespread condemnation. In a February 2024 interview, Ye stated to a paparazzi that he still supported Trump. In October 2018, he donated to progressive Chicago mayoral candidate Amara Enyia.

Ye also ran for United States president in the 2020 and 2024 elections. He fell flat of winning any substantial contest in the former and withdrew from the latter years in advance. He has been a vocal advocate of banning abortion and repealing parts of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that allow for slavery in the form of prison labor.

Associates

Ye has been known to keep some high-profile people close to him over the years. This group has included rapper Consequence; political commentators Milo Yiannopoulos, Nick Fuentes, and Candace Owens; and talent manager YesJulz; record producer Mike Dean; filmmakers Coodie & Chike; and dentist Thomas P. Connelly. In recent years, his friend circle has drastically shrunk, consisting primarily of rapper Dave Blunts and streamers Sneako and N3ON as of 2025.

Albums

See also: Discography, list of unreleased albums, and list of unreleased songs.

Solo albums

1. The College Dropout (2004)
2. Late Registration (2005)
3. Graduation (2007)
4. 808s & Heartbreak (2008)
5. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)
6. Yeezus (2013)
7. The Life of Pablo (2016)
8. Ye (2018)
9. JESUS IS KING (2019)
10. Donda (2021)
11. Donda 2 (2025)

Demo Albums

• Donda 2 (2022)
• Bully (2025)

Collaborative albums

• Watch The Throne by JAY-Z & Kanye West (2011)Cruel Summer by GOOD Music (2012)
• Kids See Ghosts by KIDS SEE GHOSTS (2018)
• Vultures 1 by ¥$ (Ye & Ty Dolla $ign) (2024)
• Vultures 2 by ¥$ (Ye & Ty Dolla $ign) (2024)