Kanye West biography

However, achieving his aim of being viewed as a rap performer in his own right was to prove hard - Jay-Z, one of the bosses at Roc-a-Fella, admitted that he found it hard to view West as anything other than a rapper, no doubt in part because of his less-than-'street' upbringing. (Whilst 50 Cent may well have less talent, he's certainly got a few more bullet holes). However, West's background was not the only obstacle he would have to over come in order to be an artist providing the rap as well as the production. He suffered a serious car crash in October 2002, falling asleep at the wheel on the way home from recording in studio, and suffering near-fatal injuries. Of course, he eventually did what all good artists should do when they experience hardship and tragedy: he used it for his art - as later inspiration for the single 'Through the Wire'.

However, his debut album was held up by his demanding slate of production work - Ludacris, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys and Talib Kweli all benefitted from West's expertise, and his own long-overdue solo album, 'The College Dropout' was not released until February 2004. A magnificent debut, the album featured his signature sample-heavy, soulful, melodic and occasionally thoughtful compositions, with some guest appearances from Jay-Z and Mos Def. Furthermore, West seemed to be making a conscious effort to strip off some of the clichés of hip hop's hard-as-nails carapace, with lyrics such as 'We all self-conscious - I'm just the first to admit it' on the track 'All Falls Down'. This pensive approach, coupled with the plaintive recovery anthem 'Through the Wire' (which featured a high-pitched sample of Chaka Khan), had West as the name on everyone's lips. The critical acclaim was matched by the requisite award nominations - a stunning 10 Grammy nominations that year, of which he won three, one being for best rap album, one for Best R&B Song with 'You Don't Know My Name', and one for best rap song, 'Jesus Walks'.

To boot, West was gaining the oxygen of publicity from his reputation for being outspoken, witty and at times controversial. To be fair, this image was certainly no construct - the story goes that in his infancy, one of West's primary school teachers once took his mother to one side and said 'Kanye has no problems with self-esteem, does he?' West loves this tale, and would now readily admit to having no problems speaking his mind and telling it how he sees it: 'The thing is, would you rather I had problems with self-esteem...? Often in the black community, people would rather you walk around with your head hanging.'

And he certainly had no reason to hang his head by 2005. Follow-up album 'Late Registration' consolidated his position as a producer and rapper to be reckoned with, and one who knew not to fear a little controversy. He fell foul of Dame Shirley Bassey by sampling her 1971 Bond theme on his 'Diamonds from Sierra Leone', without even crediting the songstress from Tiger Bay, but this did not dent for one moment the sales of this, the lead single. West gained further publicity, though this time of a rather more positive nature, by using a TV feature on him in August 2005 to challenge the stereotypical view in rap and R&B culture of homosexuality, comparing the struggle for gay rights to the civil rights movement that had preceded it. However, in equal measure, the infamy was coming in thick and fast - in a post-Hurricane Katrina telethon in September 2005, West committed live TV sacrilege by going massively off-script, lambasting the aid efforts of the government, and then stating unequivocally, 'George Bush doesn't care about black people.'

As always, a little (or a lot of) notoriety didn't hurt sales - he scored further chart success with 'Gold Digger', featuring a guest vocal from Jamie Foxx (doing his own interpretation of a hook from Ray Charles's 'I Got a Woman'.) It'd be a massive understatement to say West was pretty chuffed with 'Gold Digger', dubbing it an 'international anthem', as he told Rolling Stone in February 2006: 'White ladies, old Jewish guys, Ethiopians, Australians, they all loved the single...It's got all these pop accolades, but it also really connected in the hood. It's what you attempt to do every time you walk into the studio."

It may well have connected in the hood, and it did likewise with the Grammy nominations committee. 'Gold Digger' won the Best Rap Solo Performance category, and in addition 'Diamonds from Sierra Leone' won Best Rap Song, with Album of the Year going to 'Late Registration'. Not content to rest on his laurels, West performed a huge spectacular version of 'Gold Digger' at the 2006 Brit awards, with hundreds of dancers behind him, then hit the festival scene in summer 2006: performing at Coachella and Lollapalooza (headlining the second day in his hometown of Chicago), and opening for the Rolling Stones in their gig at the New York Giants Stadium in September.

December that year saw West defending himself in a trademark infringement case from Evil Knievel - yep, that daredevil bloke - as the video accompanying the single 'Touch the Sky' depicted the rapper in a spangly 70s jump suit, trying to jump across Snake River Canyon in a rocket, and renamed 'Evil Kanyevel'. Hmm...any similarity to the 1970s stuntman Evil Knievel, who jumped across Snake River Canyon in a rocket, could hardly be written off as unintentional, surely?

By the early summer of 2007 it had been announced that West was to be performing not only at Live Earth in the USA (with the newly reformed Police), but also at the Princess Diana tribute concert at Wembley. His short set still managed to court controversy, with the 'N' word that features so prominently in 'Gold Digger' being sprayed around Wembley and the millions of households watching on the BBC. Still, rest assured that by the September release of his third album, 'Graduation', West will still be thriving on the fuss he manages to kick up everywhere he goes, and his star certainly seems to be in the ascendancy.

• Kanye West Discography