Name: Kanye West
Industry: Music
Title: Recording artist
Twitter: @KanyeWest
Has there been a more controversial, confounding and confusing personality in popular music over the past year? It’s hard to find anyone who’s generated more attention than “Yeezy” has lately. His brash and bizarre interviews, his altercations with paparazzi, the birth of his daughter, his ongoing relationship with Kim Kardashian; he’s a walking media circus.
Amid all of the noise, West managed to record and release the year’s most polarizing mainstream release (Yeezus) and embarked on one of the most anticipated tours of 2013. His creativity is only outmatched by his ego. Even the late Lou Reed had high praises for the mercurial hip-hop star. Kanye grew up under the watchful eye of his mother, Donda West, in Chicago. With a mother who was also an educator, Kanye’s life was much more “middle class” than the stereotypical hip-hop backstory, and when he finally landed an opportunity to become an artist on Dame Dash’s Roc-A-Fella Records, he was viewed as an anomaly.
He was quoted as saying: “Art is something that in definition I think is a really close thing to love, and love is really close to God, and God is the master creator. If you’re creative, therefore, you are God, a god of something.”
After a very public falling-out with Nike, West announced that he was taking his shoe design ambitions to the apparel giant’s biggest rival. Kanye has reportedly inked a $10 million deal with adidas to design and market his own apparel.
