Good to know about Kanye West

• ◆The Dropout Bear was never planned. When Kanye arrived at the shoot for The College Dropout in 2004, a school mascot bear costume was already on set, and the image chosen for the cover shows him sitting alone in the mascot suit on empty bleachers. The bear went on to front his next two albums and became one of the most recognisable mascots in hip hop.
• ◆Takashi Murakami had never heard of Kanye West when West's team approached him in 2007 to design Graduation. The Japanese contemporary artist, known for his colourful flowers and anime inspired work, was skeptical about a hip hop project until he heard the music, then delivered the cartoon cover of the Dropout Bear being fired into space.
• ◆Graduation dropped on the same day as 50 Cent's Curtis in September 2007, turning into the biggest nonviolent sales battle in hip hop. 50 Cent publicly said he would stop releasing solo albums if he lost. Graduation won decisively, selling 957,000 copies to Curtis's 691,000 in the first week.
• ◆Late Registration (2005) was Kanye stepping away from the sped up soul samples of his debut. Working with film composer Jon Brion, he built the record around a 20 piece orchestral sound. It went straight to number one with 860,000 first week copies, and Gold Digger with Jamie Foxx topped the Hot 100.
• ◆George Condo painted five separate covers for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010. The version showing a nude phoenix straddling a figure was considered too explicit and was refused by Target and other retail chains. The album still went on to win the Grammy for Best Rap Album.
• ◆Yeezus (2013) shipped with almost no cover at all. Kanye waved off the whole idea with the line that they did not even have a cover, and Virgil Abloh landed on a clear jewel case sealed with a strip of red tape, which he described as an open casket for the dying CD format.
• ◆The Life of Pablo (2016) launched as a Tidal only exclusive and rewrote the chart rules. It became the first streaming only album to reach number one on the Billboard 200, driven by streams making up around 70 percent of its units, and later the first album to go platinum mainly through streaming. The orange collage cover was made by Belgian artist Peter De Potter.
• ◆Donda (2021) was named for Kanye's late mother, Donda West, and wrapped in an all black cover. He built anticipation with three ticketed stadium listening events, streamed live on Apple Music, before it opened at number one with the biggest week of the year and became his tenth chart topping album.