With guidance from local producer No I.D., West went on to learn the finer points of studio production, programming, and sampling, the latter technique becoming a hallmark of his early-2000s work. However, his music dreams would eventually eclipse academics and he dropped out of college, setting the stage for his best-selling school trilogy. One of his major inspirations, Donda West helped shape young Kanye, taking him to China in the late '80s on education exchange and establishing a strong base that made him a top pupil in high school. As his career progressed throughout the early 21st century, West became a superstar on his own terms without adapting his appearance, his rhetoric, or his music to fit any one musical mold.Ī proud and vocal Chicagoan, West was actually born in Atlanta, moving to the Windy City with his English professor mother after his parents split when he was three years old. His production abilities seemed boundless, as he not only racked up impressive hits for himself (including number one singles "Gold Digger" and "Stronger") but also had smash hits with longtime collaborator Jay-Z (on their 2011 Watch the Throne track "Ni**as in Paris") and even Paul McCartney (along with Rihanna on 2015's "FourFiveSeconds"). And yet, his steady presence in the celebrity limelight couldn't eclipse his musical talent. With his outsized personality, he courted plenty of controversy, posing for the cover of Rolling Stone as Jesus Christ, claiming that "George Bush doesn't care about Black people" during a televised Hurricane Katrina fundraiser, and infamously interrupting an awards speech by Taylor Swift in 2009. This flamboyance made for good press, something that West enjoyed, for better or worse, throughout the course of his career. With a backpack and brightly colored polo shirt, his dapper fashion sense set him apart from many of his rap peers, while his attitude often came across as boastful and egotistical. Early on, West paired his beats with tongue-twisting raps and outspoken confidence. Well, after much anticipation, Donda came through with a total of 309,000 album units sold in its first week, which isn't nearly as much as Drake received for his release of Certified Loverboy, which competed against Ye's release, however the Canadian rapper took the win with 613,000 units sold.One of the most influential and critically lauded artists of the early 21st century, Kanye West went from hip-hop beatmaker to worldwide hitmaker as his production work for artists such as Jay-Z led to a major-label recording contract and, ultimately, a wildly successful solo career that counted an unbroken string of chart-topping, multi-platinum albums and nearly two-dozen Grammy Awards for classic sets like 2005's Late Registration, 2007's Graduation, and 2010's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. There was a lot of hype, and listening parties, which Kanye hosted at Chicago's Soldier Field Stadium. With hundreds of records sold this far into his career, many fans wondered where Kanye's most recent album, Donda, would fall in comparison. That record goes to his 2007 album, Graduation, which sold a whopping 957,000 in its first week.
While this is quite the feat, it doesn't stand as Ye's best-selling album. Updated on September 23, 2021, by Michael Chaar: In 2004, Kanye West released his very first album, The College Dropout, which would go on to sell a whopping 441,000 album units in its first week. Despite the hype surrounding his latest album, Kanye caught some competition when Drake released his Certified Loverboy, So, how did Kanye's album sell in its first week? Let's dive in! With the release of Donda, Ye's newest album, it's never a better time to look back at his impactful discography and rank each album based on their first-week album unit sales. Related: Kanye West 'Donda Chant' Blasted As Satanic As He Debuts New Video Up to this writing, West has nine albums in his catalog, which have generated a total of 140 million in sales worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. The rest is history, and considering the success, he's had in the industry, it's clear he's also made history, too. Before rapping, West started his career as a producer, working with the likes of Eminem, Jermaine Dupri, Jay-Z, and others, until the latter signed West to Roc-A-Fella records. It's not exaggerating to say that Kanye Omari West is one of the most influential hip-hop stars of all time.