After a late-night recording session in Los Angeles 20 years ago, Kanye West fell asleep at the wheel of a rented Lexus and crashed it into an oncoming vehicle, breaking his jaw in three places. What might have been the end of West’s short career as a hip-hop artist — he had signed a deal with Roc-A-Fella Records just two weeks beforehand — instead became the inspiration for one of the greatest singles of the 21st century, West’s “Through the Wire.”
“I’m a champion, so I turned tragedy to triumph / Make music that’s fire, spit my soul through the wire,” West raps, his shattered jaw still wired shut, over a sped-up loop of the chorus of Chaka Khan’s “Through the Fire.”
For nearly two decades, beginning with his 2004 debut, “The College Dropout,” West has written, produced and performed some of the greatest music of his time. That he’s a virulent antisemite and misogynist as well as a deeply troubled human being doesn’t change that.
