
In August 2021, more than a year after it was first promised, Kanye West released his latest album, DONDA.
Featuring special guests including The Weeknd, Kid Cudi, and Jay-Z, the new 27-track album is named after the rapper's late mother, Donda West.
In the years since Donda passed away in 2007, West has struggled to cope with the loss.
The 44-year-old, who recently separated from his wife, Kim Kardashian, has long spoken about the close relationship they had.
Kanye West speaks about his mental health with David Letterman. Post continues below.
After West's parents divorced when he was three years old, he moved with his mother to Chicago, Illinois, where she raised him alone.
"My mother was my everything," West told MTV News in 2005, reflecting on his childhood.
From a young age, West had a creative side. And from the very beginning, his mother supported that.
"We were coming back from a short vacation in Michigan when he was five, and he composed a poem in the back seat," Donda told The Chicago Tribune in 2004.
"The one line that sticks with me is 'the trees are melting black.' It was late fall, and the trees had no leaves. He saw how those limbs were etched against the sky, and he described them the way a poet would."
Within just a few years, West had progressed from poetry to rap, writing a rap song titled 'Green Eggs and Ham' at just 13 years old, and finding a hip hop mentor in producer No I.D. at 15 years old.
After graduating high school, West received a scholarship to attend Chicago's American Academy of Art. However, he later transferred to Chicago State University to study English, where West's mother worked as a chairwoman of the English department.