Kanye West was born in Atlanta, Georgia on June 8, 1977. When his parents divorced when he was three years old, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, with his mother. West grew up in a middle-class family, attending Polaris School for Individual Education in Oak Lawn, Illinois, after growing up in Chicago.
West moved to Nanjing, China, with his mother when he was 10 years old, where she was a Fulbright Scholar teaching at Nanjing University. West was the only foreigner in his class, according to his mother, but he fit in well and quickly picked up the language, though he has since forgotten most of it.
Kanye West parents: Meet Ray West
Ray West, his father, is a former Black Panther and one of The Atlanta Journal-first Constitution’s black photojournalists.
Ray later became a Christian counselor and, with startup capital from his son, opened the Good Water Store and Café in Lexington Park, Maryland, in 2006.
Donda West
Donda C. West, West’s mother, was also a professor of English at Clark Atlanta University and the Chair of the English Department at Chicago State University before retiring to be his manager.
