Kanye West Will Receive Honorary Doctorate Degree

Kanye West will be able to add one more title to his name — “graduate.” Even though the college drop out rapper didn’t graduate from college, West is receiving an honorary doctorate.

This little tidbit was revealed during his interview with Clique. West, who seemed very excited about the honor, said that he’ll receive it from the Art Institute of Chicago. This bit of news must have touched Kanye. As many of West’s fans know, the rapper, producer, and designer hails from Chicago, and his late mother Donda West was a Professor of English at Clark Atlanta University.

During the interview, West opened up about the honor. “I was a gifted artist since age 5 and won national competitions and went to art school. I’m actually getting an honorary doctorate on May 5th from the Art Institute of Chicago.”

West has always been an advocate for education in his lyrics and outside of his work. Back in 2005, he spoke to Santa Monica High School’s students about staying in school.

“It is true you can be successful without [college], but this is a hard world, a real world, and you want every advantage you can have.”

He continued, “I would suggest to people to do all that you can. When I dropped out of school I had worked in the music industry and had checks cut in my name from record labels and had a record deal on the table, and when I wasn’t successful and Columbia said, ‘We’ll call you,’ I had to go back and work a telemarketing job, go back to the real world, and that’s how life is. Life is hard. Take advantage of your opportunities.”

Back then the Kanye West Foundation and Musicland worked together for a contest that gave away $150,000 of free tuition to one person to put towards a college of their choice.

At the time, the artist said that schools had to promote a forward way of thinking about how and what they teach students.

“Nowadays the average student wants to be a rapper or video director or producer or something like that more than playing basketball. So why not start a curriculum that teaches music production? Come on, get with the times. People are so behind. There’s poetry classes, but why aren’t there rap curriculums? It takes people like myself to stand up and say this is part of our culture, why not use it to educate.”

[Photo by Rick Kern / Getty Images]