Kanye West Net Worth

American Kanye Omari West is a worldwide-known rapper, music producer, entrepreneur, fashion designer, film producer and hip-hop beat maker, who was born in Atlanta, Georgia on 8 June 1977. He is known both for his own solo career, and for producing albums by such artists as Jay-Z and Alicia Keys.

So just how rich is Kanye West, as of early 2017? Authoritative sources estimate that Kanye has a net worth of over $160 million, accumulated during his career in the entertainment industry which now spans more than 20 years.

Kanye West Net Worth $160 million

Kanye moved to Chicago, Illinois with his mother after his parents’ divorce – Dr. Donda West was an English professor, before becoming West’s manager. He also spent some time in China when his mother taught at Nanjing University, and learned the language. Kanye began rapping and writing in his early teens, and although he briefly attended both the American Academy of Art studying art, and Chicago State University to study English in the late ‘90s, he dropped out to concentrate on music.

It is said that Kanye worked on his debut album “The College Dropout” for almost four years – which hit second place on the Billboard 200 – but even then was also producing other artists’ music. Later followed the albums “Late Registration”, “Graduation” as well as “808s & Heartbreak” and “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy“.

Kanye’s releases seem to practically sell themselves, but so do those on which he has worked as a producer, with such stars as Jay-Z and his wife Beyoncé, John Legend, Janet Jackson and  Alicia Keys. In his musical career overall, Kanye Omari has won more than 40 awards, fourteen of them being Grammys, two American Music Awards, and seven BET awards, as a solo artist and a producer working with his record label called Roc-A-Fella, which is an allusion to the Rockefeller family who are also very wealthy.

Additionally, Kanye is a businessman, and created a luxurious shoe line for Louis Vuitton couture house, and in 2014 a line of sneakers on which he collaborated with Nike – called Air Yeezy – a reference to one of his albums, “Yeezus”.

Speaking about his personal life, Kanye has been married to wealthy socialite and reality show star Kimberly ‘Kim’ Kardashian since 2014, and they have a daughter and a son. In the past Kanye dated Alexis Phifer, model Amber Rose, and also rapper Wiz Khalifa.

Kanye is also a noted philanthropist – after his mother’s death, he established a charity called Dr. Donda West Foundation, which supports African-American children, as well as latino children, and  provided help to the victims of hurricane Katrina.