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.
Insults are a great 2nd place when you cannot substantively address any point. Good luck with that.
Did you just call me JerriCurl and then follow up with what appears to be a Stuart Smalley reference gone wrong?
If so, that was unexpected turn this conversation took, given that this is 2007.
Oh, c’mon - I meant it. I LOVE you!
I think JerriBlank is off their meds...
“I think JerriBlank is off their meds...”
Your stinging wit! It’s... breathtaking!
A perfectly nice lookin' woman gone, and here we are still stuck with Jacko.
I bet the schmuck paid for the surgery.
Oh, you!!!
(c;
Can’t recall the freeper’s screenname, shame on me, but one of our own died of cosmetic surgery complications within the last two years. Really sweet gal...desertrose, cactusflower...help me out, jonny!
"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."
I think you're correct.
Further investigation reveals the following about her doctor:
(1) He has multiple DUIs.
(2) He has been accused by a patient of sexual assault.
(3) Before this incident he was already facing loss of license due to the DUIs.
(4) He is not a board-certified plastic surgeon.
(5) He works the talk show circuit, having appeared on Oprah and elsewhere to promote his line of cosmetics for "women of color."
My guess is that Donda West went to a board-certified plastic surgeon who declined to perform the surgery, and then she either got in touch with or was put in touch with a plastic surgeon who was involved with Oprah, known for his boosterism for "women of color" and his Afrocentricity in general.
In other words, she allowed Jan Adams' ideological and cultural appeal to her prejudices to trump his questionable professionalism.
Note to FReepers: do not choose a surgeon just because he claims to be a conservative Republican.
According to “Inside Edition”, the doctor, who is black, has botched many cosmetic surgeries in years past and had quite an extensive list of clients suing him in court. In addition to the fact that he was taken to court by his ex-wife for a domestic violence matter.
A quick record check of the0se facts could’ve avoided the West family all this pain. But, I guess since the doctor was a ‘brotha’, it didn’t really matter so much. Could you possibly imagine what would happen if the doc had been white?
She died after she had gastric bypass surgery, but I don't think she had the surgery for cosmetic reasons. She was diagnosed with diabetes just before then, so I think that was more of a factor than anything else.
A board certified surgeon rejected her due to her heart history.
So she shopped around.
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