50 Things You Didn't Know About Kanye West

Despite everything written about him and an endless array of quotables, plenty of Yeezy facts have still flown under the radar. Until now.

Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Yeezy done taught you well. Or did he?

You'd think: After everything he's rapped about, said in the public, said in private (that's made its way to the public), spoken during shows, or screamed during shows, there's not much we all wouldn't know about one of the most popular and sought-after artists in the world, Kanye West.

But if you go deep within interviews with 'Ye, with other artists, in profiles, and small moments that got buried in blunt headlines, there's a hell of a lot to know about Kanye that you don't already. Did you know he programmed a video in seventh grade, that people used to call him "Deep House," or why he respects Bush? If not, pay attention.

These are 50 Things You Didn't Know About Kanye West.

He lived in China for a year in fifth grade.

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His mom said he made kids in China give him sheep skewers in exchange for watching him breakdance.

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50 Things You Didn't Know About Kanye West

Despite everything written about him and an endless array of quotables, plenty of Yeezy facts have still flown under the radar. Until now.

He lived in China for a year in fifth grade.

His mom said he made kids in China give him sheep skewers in exchange for watching him breakdance.

Kid 'n' Play's debut and De La Soul's "My, Myself, and I" were the first records to catch his attention.

He made his first beat in seventh grade.

The beat was for a sexual Mario-style video game that he programmed, where "the ghosts were vaginas."

When he was 13, he cried when his dad didn't let him get his hair cut often enough to keep up a high top fade.

He had an early nickname of "Deep House" because of his baggy pants and backpacks.

After dropping out of school, he worked as a telemarketer to pay his mom the $200 a month in rent she demanded.

He's said that real estate was another early hustle before he got on by making beats.

Being a male porn star popped in his head "once or twice."

He sold his first beat to local Chicago rapper Gravity for $8,800.

He used the $8,800 to buy a Jesus Piece and Polo clothes.

A year later, he sold the chain to No I.D. to help finance his move to NYC.

In 2000, he was arrested for allegedly stealing printers from OfficeMax after a case of mistaken identity.

No I.D. briefly fell back from helping Kanye when he took him to label meetings and 'Ye jumped on tables shouting t

He'd "leave meetings crying all the time" before he got signed.

He shot the video for "Through The Wire" with $35,000 of his own money.

The sample for "Through The Wire" wasn't cleared until the video was added to rotation on MTV2.

When the Hezekiah Walker Chorus didn't deliver, he drove to the Hamptons and paid the Harlem Boys Choir $10,000 to

He thought The College Dropout "fell short of the actual Fiona Apple or Portishead sound" he was going after.

Rick Rubin, who Kanye's called the "Hollywood Yellow Pages," hooked him up with Late Registration co-producer, Jon Brion.

He originally planned a theatrical release for all of the music videos from Late Registration.

While working on Late Registration, he kept a side-by-side tracklisting of Common's Be in the studio to make sure his own album was just as good.

He mixed "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" 14 times.

M.I.A. was supposed to be on album cut "Drive Slow."

Shawnna passed on the beat for the album's biggest single, "Gold Digger."

He doesn't keep his Grammys or any other awards in his house.

He didn't appreciate Common's "They Say" being nominated for Best Rap/Sung Collab over "Heard 'Em Say" and "Gold Di

He apologized to Common for the way his Grammy speech sounded when Late Registration beat Be.

After Late Registration dropped, he said: "I think I'm gonna move to London. Get a fake-ass British accent like Madonna."

Around the same time, he said: "I TiVo rap videos so I can study them. To learn what steps to take to crush them all."

Macy Gray sang a reference for Mission: Impossible 3 track, "Impossible."

He still stands because behind his Katrina comments but respects how George W. Bush can "deal with being the bad guy."

He tried to record "Crack Music" without the N-word.

He consciously replaced the N-word with "homie" on "Can't Tell Me Nothing."

Yes, Timbaland helped with the drums on "Stronger." A lesser known fact is movie director Michael Gondry helped with the drums on "Diamonds."

Graduation's "stadium" sound was inspired by touring with the Rolling Stones and U2.

"Stronger" took 50 mixes and eight engineers to complete.

Michael Jackson called him to ask about the jacket he wore in the "Stronger" video.

He wrote a personal letter about his dad to Donald Fagen of Steely Dan to get the "Kid Charlemagne" sample cleared

He came out of his own pocket to shoot the Glow in the Dark tour when Best Buy backed out of sponsoring it.

While recording 808s & Heartbreak, he saw Hawaii's 808 area code as a sign that the album was meant to be.

He says that Drake was the first artist who actually scared and put pressure on him.

Mos Def came to his house after the Taylor Swift incident at the VMAs and encouraged him to move out of America.

He booked a flight to Minnesota to work with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver but it was canceled because of snowstorm. He

Kanye made Pusha T re-write his "Runaway" verse four times and pushed him to be more of a douchebag each time.

While getting his hair cut, he rapped "Power" to Pete Rock before he even laid vocals.

Q-Tip said Kanye would even ask people who delivered food for their opinion on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantas

Nicki Minaj's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy intro is based on writer Roald Dahl's "Cinderella."

Some of his unreleased music includes a record with Jay-Z and Jack White and a song that samples music from Broadway musical Wicked.

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