{"id":9261,"date":"2015-02-20T15:21:53","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T20:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=9261"},"modified":"2015-09-24T14:30:49","modified_gmt":"2015-09-24T18:30:49","slug":"10-things-you-need-to-know-about-kanye-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=9261","title":{"rendered":"10 Things You Need to Know About: Kanye West"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-9226 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Sarah-Blake-c-Jessica-Todd-Harper-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Sarah Blake (c) Jessica Todd Harper\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/>He\u2019s the self-proclaimed voice of a generation\u2014the rapper who makes headlines with every tweet he posts, song he writes, and fur coat he dons. But for Sarah Blake (n\u00e9e Schoenholtz), a 2006 TCNJ graduate and 2013 recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship, Kanye West is something more: an artistic muse. Her new book of poetry, <em>Mr. West<\/em>, due out in March from Wesleyan University Press, is an \u201cunauthorized lyric biography\u201d of the superstar. In celebration of that work, we\u2019ve assembled 10 facts about the one and only Mr. West.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-9233\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/shutterstock_95932021-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"shutterstock_95932021\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/shutterstock_95932021-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/shutterstock_95932021-680x1024.jpg 680w, https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/shutterstock_95932021.jpg 797w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>1. The rapper says that touring with Irish rockers U2 in 2005 inspired much of his third studio album, Graduation.<\/p>\n<p>2. West executive produced a wacky video for his song \u201cCan\u2019t Tell Me Nothing\u201d that starred a pre-Hangover-fame Zach Galifianakis; Rolling Stone called it one of the best videos of 2007.<\/p>\n<p>3. Kanye didn\u2019t take the stage until 4:30 a.m. for his 2008 performance at the Bonnaroo Music Festival because the preceding act, Pearl Jam, played longer than expected<\/p>\n<p>4. West\u2019s late mother, Donda, was chair of the English department at Chicago State University before retiring, in 2004, to work as his manager.<\/p>\n<p>5. The rapper once told <em>The New York Times<\/em> he\u2019s \u201cthe anti-celebrity,\u201d adding, \u201cMy music comes from a place of being anti.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>6. Galifianakis isn\u2019t the only famous comedian West has befriended. Aziz Ansari used to tell stories about their hangouts in his act, Kanye performed a three-song medley at a Dave Chappelle show last June, and there\u2019s a 2008 YouTube video of Yeezy battling Jonah Hill in Connect Four.<\/p>\n<p>7. If you google \u201cTwitter rant,\u201d West\u2019s Twitter page is the top result.<\/p>\n<p>8. Kanye often drops celebrity names into his songs: Jennifer Aniston, Will Smith, John Travolta, Alec Baldwin, Beyonc\u00e9, Michael Jackson, Spike Lee, Celine Dion\u2014the list goes on and on.<\/p>\n<p>9. Kanye\u2019s 2014 wedding to Kim Kardashian featured some pretty incredible musical guests: Andrea Bocelli at the ceremony, Lana Del Rey at the rehearsal dinner, and John Legend at the reception.<\/p>\n<p>10. Rapper Rick Ross, who collaborated with West on the song \u201cSanctified,\u201d compared recording sessions with him to school: \u201cIt\u2019s like everybody is a student: You walk into a session, and it\u2019s all about the subject at hand.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>\u2014Compiled by Molly Petrilla<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He\u2019s the self-proclaimed voice of a generation\u2014the rapper who makes headlines with every tweet he posts, song he writes, and fur coat he dons. But for Sarah Blake (n\u00e9e Schoenholtz), a 2006 TCNJ graduate and 2013 recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship, Kanye West is something more: an artistic muse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":9233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tcnj-x10","category-winter-2015"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}