Born on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia, to an award-winning photojournalist father and a mom who was an English teacher, Kanye West was a gifted visual artist with an affinity for poetry. At 15, while attending high school, West met future mentor and homie, budding producer NO I.D. At the time, NO I.D. was working with Common.

While learning the tricks of the music producer trade in NO I.D.'s basement studio, West eventually acquired his first sampling keyboard and began honing his skills as a budding producer. In order to support his dreams, he worked a series of what he would later term as "dead-end" jobs, including a stint working as a sales clerk at the Gap. Upon graduation, he enrolled in college to study art.

In 1998, West got his first big break when Atlanta producer/hip-hop mogul Jermaine Dupri bought a beat from him for his Life in 1472 album. Soon word got out about West's beats and work rolled in fast and furious - so fast that in 2001, West packed his bags and headed for Gotham. It wasn't long before he started supplying beats to some of the biggest names in hip-hop, including Jay-Z, who, among others, assisted West in landing a deal at Roc-A-Fella Records.

It was his work for Roc-a-Fella at the dawn of the new millennium that took his career to the next level. Alongside with Just Blaze, West became one of The Roc's most sought after producers.

His first windfall came in 2001 when he laced Jay-Z's crucial Blueprint... album with "Takeover" and "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)." Both songs were huge hits, incorporating West's trademark beatmaking style, with the former featuring samples from the Doors' "Five to One," and the latter track the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back."

West experienced a tragic car accident in October 2002 that almost took his life. The event inspired "Through the Wire" which later became the lead single for his debut album The College Dropout (2004). However, Kanye's debut was continually delayed. Meanwhile, West continued to pump out monster hits for the likes of Jay-Z ("'03 Bonnie & Clyde"), Ludacris ("Stand Up"), Talib Kweli ("Get By"), and Alicia Keys ("You Don't Know My Name"). He also released hot mixtapes such as I'm Good, the limited release Kon The Louis Vuitton Don , and Get Well Soon.

Then, just as "Through the Wire" was blowing up in late 2003, another West song caught fire, the collaboration with Twista and comedian/actor Jamie Foxx called "Slow Jamz" that gave the rapper/producer two simultaneously chart-searing singles and a highly anticipated debut album. These two tracks were also driven by unique and soulful sample-based hooks — Chaka Khan's "Through the Fire" in the case of "Through the Wire," and Luther Vandross' "A House Is Not a Home" in the case of "Slow Jamz."

From the horse's mouth:
"In hip-hop people always have pre-conceived ideas about you when you're a producer who also rhymes. But one of the main things I wanna stress is that Stevie Wonder produced his own music. Prince produced his own music. Tyrone Davis and Bobby Womac - all these different people. And you don't even think about the fact that they created their own songs. So I don't see what I do as being any different." - Kanye West