Kanye Wests Height, Age and 8 Other Interesting Facts About The Rapper

May 2024 · 10 minute read

Kanye West’s height is 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m) and he is 46 years old as of 2023. The American rapper and fashion designer is shorter than most people would expect.

Kanye West is perhaps one of the most talented humans on earth, as far as hip hop is concerned. He has earned his wealth and fame through his music career. Apart from his unquestionable talent for making good songs and rapping, Kanye has a lot more going for him, including his penchant for courting controversies. From crashing the stage of the 2009 MTV Videos Music Awards to tell Taylor Swift she didn’t deserve an award she had won to proclaiming that slavery was a choice, Yeezy has been in the news for so many wrong reasons but he simply doesn’t care. He considers himself to be the voice of this generation and has gone about airing his views regardless of how distasteful they may seem.

The rapper has sold over 20 million albums across the globe. He is one of the best-selling music artists in the world and one of the most awarded artists of all time. Kanye has won a total of 22 Grammy Awards in addition to a host of other coveted gongs. Twice, in 2005 and 2015, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. All of these made him someone that piques the interest of many people who follow his career as much as they keep up with his personal life and search for information about trivial things like his height.

Profile Summary of Kanye West

10. Kanye West’s Height Is 5 Feet 8 Inches and Most American Men Are Slightly Taller Than Him

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In addition to being a rapper, the star is also a fashion designer. This means he cares about how he looks, at least to some extent. Kanye West has what one might consider as a naturally athletic body.

It has been claimed in some quarters that he hardly works out, yet he maintains a body weight of around 165 pounds (75 kg) which is perfect for his height.

While you wouldn’t regard Kanye as a short man, he is definitely not as tall as most men in his country. The average height for men in the United States is 5 feet 9 inches. But in South Asia where the average height for men is 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m), the rapper would be considered a tall man. Compared to other hip-hop artists, Kanye West is of average height.

2. The Rapper Born on the 8th of June 1977 Is 46 Years Old

It’s really not a secret that Kanye West was born on June 8, 1977. It has been widely reported that his place of birth was in Atlanta, Georgia, but some records have narrowed it down to Douglasville, a small city located in Atlanta. He was raised in Chicago and started to school there only to drop out in the 1990s to pursue a career in music. At the age of 10 and prior to him quitting school, West moved with his mother to Nanjing, China, and attended a school there which forced him to learn Chinese. He has since forgotten the language almost entirely.

When the rapper was 20 years old, he dropped out of school claiming it was interfering with his musical work. This was an unwelcomed development for Kanye West’s single mother who was also a professor at the same institution, Chicago State University, but she later came to terms with it. The singer and music producer actually produced a song he titled College Dropout, in the song, he talks about having the guts to embrace who you really are, rather than following the path the society decided to carve for you. This statement also holds for many of the celebrities who became successful after dropping out of school to pursue rather uncertain entertainment careers.

3. His Parents Got Divorced When He Was Three Years Old And He’s an Only Child

Kanye West was born to Donda and Ray West. from what we gathered, Donda was born on the 12th of July 1949 and her place of birth was in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She was married to Ray and they had only Kanye before the union packed up in 1980. Following the end of the marriage, Donda moved to Chicago with Kanye who was about three years old, and decided to forge a new life for herself there. She returned to school and it culminated into become a professor at Chicago State University.

While the rapper was mostly raised by his mother and closer to her, he has a good relationship with his father, Ray West. Growing up, he spent most of his summers with his father. Like his mother, Ray is also quite accomplished in his career. The man often described as a member of the defunct political party, Black Panther, is also renowned as the first black photojournalist of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the major daily newspaper in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolis. Based on various accounts, the man has always been a good father to his son. He cared and provided for him even when he struggled financially.

Kanye is the only child his parents had together. Nonetheless, his father remarried and through him, the rapper has a step-sister named Aliya Jones and a step-brother named Hal Carmichael.

4. Kanye’s Mother Passed In November 2007 and Her Death Brought About The Donda West Law In California

You don’t have to be a fan of Kanye West to know that he admired his mother a great deal and that her death has been very difficult for him. It’s been over a decade since the woman passed but the famous rapper is yet to get over it. In a 2015 interview with Q Magazine, he described Donda as his everything and blamed himself for her death, stating that she would have been alive if he didn’t move to Los Angeles. On the 22nd of July 2021, the rapper officially unveiled what would become his tenth studio album, Donda, in honor of his late mother, Donda West, who passed on the 10th of November 2007. Before the woman died, she managed the career of her son.

Reports have it that the cause of Donda’s death bothers around plastic surgery. It is said that she had breast reduction surgery, tummy tuck, and liposuction a day before her death. Her autopsy report related that she disregarded a piece of advice to receive post-operative care after the surgery that lasted over five hours but opted to return home. Donda collapsed after complaining of pain and tightening in her chest. She was rushed back to the hospital and was soon pronounced dead. Her death was attributed to several postoperative factors and coronary artery disease.

In 2010, the State of California signed a law named after her, the Donda West Law. The law requires patients to get a physical exam and clearance from a doctor within 30 days before going for cosmetic surgery.

5. The Rapper Had a Liposuction Surgery In 2016

This is probably one of the surprising things people get to learn about the hip-hop star. Given that liposuction was one of the surgeries his mother had just before she passed on, one would expect the rapper to abhor everything that relates to plastic surgery. Also, getting any form of plastic surgery isn’t something celebrities are known to proudly discuss publicly. As such, it was quite a surprise when Kanye West disclosed that he had liposuction surgery in 2016 because he wanted to look good so that he wouldn’t be called “fat”.

Explaining the incident that led to his hospitalization that year, Kanye also disclosed that he was addicted to opioids that were prescribed to him after the surgery. According to him, he returned to the hospital but was given more of the drugs. “I was drugged out”, he said. If his claims are true, he was on opioids when he ended his November 2016 concert midway and made series of controversial comments, including begging Jay Z to not send his killers after him.

6. He Suffers Bipolar Disorder and Has Contemplated Suicide

Kanye West might seem to be opinionated but he is a man battling several demons. Given some of his controversial behavior and tweets, people began making speculations about the state of his mental health. And following the release of his 2018 album, Ye, the rapper confirmed that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a condition characterized by extreme mood swings.

Kanye divulged that it sometimes makes him feel like people around him want to kill him. He also said he often thinks of taking his own life. Based on what he said, he thinks through the thoughts and it reduces the chances of seeing it through.

7. Ye Once Considered Becoming a Pornographic Actor

You have already known that Kanye West is one of the most successful rappers the world has ever seen, you also probably know he’s a fashion designer as well; what you likely haven’t learned is that he considered becoming a pornographic actor. After he left school to focus on building a career in music, Kanye West had to take up some jobs to make ends meet. He worked as a telemarketer at some point and toyed with the idea of becoming a porn star.

Then, Ye was engaged to a designer named Alexis Phifer. It is said that she talked him out of the career path. The rapper admitted in one of his many interviews that he had been addicted to pornography. According to him, it began when he was about five years old and came across a Playboy that belonged to his father. He also disclosed that he became a sex addict when his mother passed in 2007. These addictions, in his words, “had full control” of him but with the help of God, he has been able to curb them. West is a Christian and has been very outspoken about his faith of late.

8. Kanye West Ran For President In 2020 and Might Be Running for Governor of California

It wouldn’t be out of place for one to describe Kanye as a politician. When the rapper announced he would be running for the 2020 presidential election, many people didn’t think he was serious about it. But then, he filed his paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission and ran as an independent candidate under the Birthday Party: he said it would be everyone’s birthday if he wins.

His campaign largely bordered on Christian democracy and he wasn’t wary of admitting he was clueless on issues like taxes and foreign policies. Of course, no one expected him to win but he received over 66 thousand votes across 12 states. The rapper is yet to share what his future political plans are, but he stated in October 2020 that he’s open to running for the Governor of California.

9. He Received an Honorary Doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago In 2015

Every Tom, Dick, and Harry, knows that Kanye West dropped out of college to pursue his musical career. In fact, his debut studio album, The College Dropout, is a constant reminder of that fact. Anyway, the college dropout has an advanced degree, albeit an honorary one. In 2015, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) recognized what it described as his “transformative, genre-defying” work with an honorary doctorate.

10. Kanye West Was Touted as the Richest Black Billionaire In the United States

For an entertaining of Kanye West’s caliber, it is only natural that his career has brought him a massive financial reward. It is estimated that he has sold more than 20 million albums and 140 million singles across the globe. Disregarding what he has made from record sales and concert tours, the rapper has multiple business interests and his biggest cash cow has been his Yeezy sneaker brand.

In March 2020, it circulated that the rap star is worth $6.6 billion and had become the richest billion of African-American extraction in the United States. But then, Forbes debunked this claim, asserting that he’s only worth $1.8 billion.

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