The memory of his mother lives on through Kanye West’s thoughts and creative endeavors.
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He lost his first supporter and fiercest ally that year, though, when Donda passed after experiencing complications following cosmetic surgery, a loss that shook Kanye up, sometimes in public. “But I guess I did the next best thing - I exposed him to the world.” The rest is modern history: The pride in education, the concern for the Black lower and middle class, and the wide-ranging cultural tastes passed on to him from his mother formed the foundations of Kanye’s inaugural trilogy of classic albums, comprising 2004’s The College Dropout, 2005’s Late Registration, and 2007’s Graduation. “I would give Kanye the world if I could,” Donda wrote. She pitched in most of the money he used to buy his first keyboard, at 14, and she trusted that the lessons she imparted to him, the local and international culture she’d introduced him to, would be of use wherever he landed, in academia or elsewhere. When his interest in schooling took a backseat to music in his first year at CSU, his mother took it hard but rolled with it. Donda stressed the value of education - she once found a porno stashed in teen Kanye’s bedroom and made him write a research paper on what the stuff could do to his developing brain. She noticed her child’s artistic gifts very early on and took advantage of every available resource to help realize his dreams while advancing her own career and training. “I was young, Black, and smart,” she wrote in her 2007 memoir, Raising Kanye: Life Lessons from the Mother of a Hip-Hop Superstar. Donda had just earned a doctorate in English education and wanted to teach at Chicago State University. Donda West, who moved up to the Windy City with a young Kanye in tow in the early ’80s after ending things amicably with ex-husband Ray, a talented photojournalist. Kanye West will have you know he was born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, cultured and well traveled thanks to the tireless drive and nurturing of his mother, the late Dr.
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Photo: Jesse Lirola/BFA Courtesy of DONDA/