The one thing Kanye West believes would have stopped his mother from dying
When Kanye West talks of his mother, all bravado drains from his voice. In 2015, when his cultural dominance was at its peak, he confessed something that pierced through all his personas. When questioned about what he had to sacrifice in order to achieve success, he responded in a low tone, saying “my mom”.
Then followed the sentence which has lingered around his career like a bruise. “Had I not relocated to LA, she would be alive”.
It was no provocation or headline grabber. It was guilt spoken out loud. Kanye was not claiming causation in a legal sense, but emotional responsibility. Los Angeles was the turning point in his mind. It was where his ambition stretched too far, where being closely related to fame influenced decisions, and his mother found herself wanting cosmetic surgery that she probably would never have thought of in Chicago. The domino to Kanye was the move west.
Donda West was not a marginal person in his life. She was the centre. As an English professor who has been in academia for decades, raised Kanye on her own, believed in him when no one else did, and guarded his creative instinct when the industry urged him to be pragmatic.
She funded his first studio session, drove him to record, edited his lyrics and even abandoned her own career to manage his. Kanye did not make that out to be a sacrifice on her part. He framed it as a partnership. “She was really my first manager”, he said, more than once, long after she had left.
After the College Dropout, Donda travelled with Kanye when his career took off. In 2004 she moved to Los Angeles where she entered into the celebrity culture machine entirely. She operated foundations, signed backstage passes as Manager, and defended her son when he had been boxed in by critics. As such, Kanye listened to her the way that he seldom listened to anyone.
This careful structure was broken with her death in 2007. Donda West passed after undergoing elective cosmetic surgery in Los Angeles. The coroner declared it was a heart failure with several factors following the operation and not malpractice. To Kanye, the fateful surgery could not be viewed out of context. The money. The access. The city. The version of life he had welcomed her to.
And so, Kanye retreated, cancelled concerts, disappeared from view. When he did return to the stage, he took her with him, singing ‘Hey Mama’ with apparent difficulty. Several years later, he would maintain that her death continues to cannibalise him, that he feels somewhat responsible.
Grief began to invade his work, either explicitly or indirectly. ‘Only One’ was a dialogue between Kanye and his mother, and his 2021 album called Donda further supported their connection. He used her name to start creative enterprises, developed ideas based on her legacy, and several times referred to her as his moral guide, even when she was gone.
The life and career of Kanye West is commonly defined with ego, controversy, and spectacle. And yet, upon further examination, it is a plain wound. In his opinion, this is the price he had to pay, the person who mattered the most.