Posted on 11/12/2007 8:52:17 AM PST by Borges
An educator for 31 years, she was her superstar son's inspiration
A publicist for Donda West told the BCC the former Chicago educator and mother of hip-hop superstar Kanye West died "as the result of complications from a cosmetic surgical procedure." The publicist, Patricia Green, gave no more details.
Donda West died Saturday in a Los Angeles hospital. She was 58.
A spokesman for the rapper released a one-sentence statement: "The family respectfully asks for privacy during this time of grief."
An educator for 31 years, Donda West started her teaching career in the 1970s at Morris Brown College in Atlanta. Her only son, Kanye, was born there in 1977. In 1980, she moved to Chicago to accept a position in the Department of English and Speech at Chicago State University, and she was serving as the department chair when she left in 2004 to become Kanye's general manager.
Kanye West, 30, has attributed his outspokenness to his mother and his father, Ray West, a former Black Panther who later became a photojournalist and is now a Christian marriage counselor. After Ray and Donda West divorced when their son was 3, Kanye lived with his mother and spent summers with his father.
"Both of my parents are teachers; I can't help but want to tell somebody something they didn't know," Kanye told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2005.
Celebrated her in his music In Raising Kanye: Life Lessons from the Mother of a Hip-Hop Superstar, co-written with Karen Hunter and published last spring, Donda West wrote about being a single mother in the African-American community.
She noted that she was proud to have expanded her son's worldview, and she always encouraged his talents: When he was 10, he spent a year with her in China while she was teaching English at Nanchang University, and when he was 13, she gave him $1,000 to buy the recording equipment that launched his career as a rapper and record producer.
The entertainer didn't hide the fact that he and his mother were close, and he often took her to music industry awards ceremonies.
"I never make any important decision without consulting her," he told the Sun-Times in 2005, and his work is peppered with tributes to her. "Hey Mama" is the most obvious of these songs -- in the choruses, Kanye raps, "Hey Mama, I wanna scream so loud for you/'Cause I'm so proud of you" -- but even more moving is "Never Let Me Down," in which the artist recalls his mother's role as an advocate of civil rights:
"I get down for my grandfather who took my momma/ Made her sit in that seat where white folks ain't want us to eat," Kanye raps. "At the tender age of 6, she was arrested for the sit-in/ With that in my blood I was born to be different."
Donda West moved to Los Angeles two years ago. There, she served as the chair of the recently created Kanye West Foundation, which is dedicated to curbing the high school dropout rate through initiatives such as Loop Dreams. Loop Dreams will begin training Chicago teachers this spring to incorporate hip-hop in their curriculums.
Donda West shared the stage with her son during a star-studded benefit concert for the program last August at Chicago's House of Blues. She was often seen in the VIP section at her son's local performances but was not in attendance last Thursday when he joined his mentor, rap icon Jay-Z, for several songs at the House of Blues.
Sources close to Kanye West said he had just arrived in London when he learned of his mother's death on Saturday, and he immediately flew to Los Angeles to join family members.
Death by lipo?
Prayers to family and her friends.
His mother was an English teacher? You’d never guess by his grammer. “You need to pump your brakes and drive SLOWLY homey.”
How very said. My sympathies to all her family and friends.
I can’t help but think of the lyrics of his latest song.
“I’d do anything for a blunt”
As a mom that just makes me want to tear up.
Apparently, this doctor did not care about black people.....
to keep biting your tongue so hard!
That would be my guess.
If that’s her in the picture, she looks very youthful for 58. But then so many black ladies are lucky enough to hold onto their good looks for many years. It’s a shame she felt she needed cosmetic surgery when she was so young-looking.
“...his father, Ray West, a former Black Panther who later became
a photojournalist and is now a Christian marriage counselor.”
I can’t but wonder if Ray West is the guy who should be getting interviews
and coverage in the media.
He might have some interesting things to say.
Not necessarily about his ex-wife and son...but about his trip from
Blank Panther to photojournalist to Christian marriage counselor.
She may look youthful because she’d already had other cosmetic procedures performed. Many (many, many) people have cosmetic work done and don’t look strange or anything other than a more youthful version of themselves.
How long before the @sshole blames it on Bush?
Lipoing the abdominal region is dangerous. Dieting can accomplish the same results and you won’t die.
National healthcare could have saved her.He'll get a sympathy #1 hit out of it.
“Dieting can accomplish the same results and you won’t die.”
Oh?
My understanding is that the death-rate among dieters is 100%.
Possible. It's probably useless to speculate. But so many black women retain their good looks far longer than white women do and many are quite lovely well into their seventies. I am working with some black ladies who are in their forties and look 30, while my best girlfriend is a black woman in her fifties who looks like she hasn't quite cleared forty yet. It's exasperating, in a good way!
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