12 Things You Need To Know About The Death Of Donda West
When Kanye West announced his highly anticipated, now delayed 10th album would be titled, “DONDA,” hardcore fans knew that the album title was referring to his beloved mother Dr. Donda West.
Kanye has over the years released many popular songs including, “Hey Mama,” from his 2005 album “Late Registration” which pays tribute to Dr. West who was a supporter of her son’s musical ambitions from the start.
Tragically Dr. West passed away just as her son was going from a relatively unknown producer to a full-fledged global superstar. Naturally, her passing has led many fans to speculate on the circumstances of her death, and it’s commonly believed that she died, aged 58, during plastic surgery on November 10, 2007, in Marina Del Rey, California.
However, the details of her death are not so simple, and the truth is that Dr. Donda West did not die during surgery, but went home, against the recommendation of the surgeon who performed her procedure where she passed away of cardiac arrest.
Perhaps the saddest fact of her passing is that it offers her loved ones little in the way of closure since there are so many suspicious details at play.
Here are 12 things you should know about how his mother’s suspicious death has influenced his highly anticipated album.
1. DONDA WEST WAS A COLLEGE PROFESSOR
Dr. Donda West gave birth to Kanye West on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia where she taught as a professor of English at Clark Atlanta University.
After divorcing Kanye’s father, former Black Panther Ray West, when the young Kanye was 3, Dr. West moved the pair to Chicago. The city would have a huge impact on Kanye’s development as an artist in the years to come.
While there, Dr. West was Chair of the English Department at Chicago State University.
2. DONDA AND KANYE LIVED IN CHINA
When Kanye was 10, Dr. West moved with him to Nanjing, China where she taught as part of an exchange program. The experience helped broaden Kanye’s viewpoint on the world and according to Dr. West, he picked up the language quickly.
The experience likely had a big impact on the young Kanye who would later embrace a wide spectrum of influences outside of his immediate environment to create his music and visual style.
3. DONDA SERVED AS KANYE’S MANAGER
Dr. West was also a supporter of her son’s passion for creative arts, taking notice that he took to drawing and poetry at an early age.
When he took up an interest in rapping, Dr. West paid for time in a recording studio so the young Kanye could begin his music career. She did this even when she arrived with her son in the studio to find it was a basement with a microphone hanging from the ceiling.
She would continue to support his burgeoning career, even after Kanye dropped out of college to pursue it full time.
4. DONDA DIDN’T WANT KANYE TO BE A DROPOUT
Naturally, the professor was not pleased with her son’s decision. But as Kanye’s career progressed, Dr. West became her son’s full-time manager, moving with him to Los Angeles.
However, the decision to move to L.A. is one that would come to haunt Kanye in the years to come. In an essay he penned for XXL magazine, Kanye said that the move found his beloved mother, “in a place that would eat her alive.”
With Dr. West being such a massive influence and support system in Kanye’s life, it’s not hard to understand that her death had a devastating impact on the newly famous rapper and might be able to explain his decade-long public struggle with his mental health.
This explanation makes all the more sense when the details of his mother’s tragic death are revealed.
5. DONDA WEST OPTED FOR COSMETIC SURGERY
Upon moving to Los Angeles to manage her son’s career, the academic Dr. West opted for cosmetic surgery. Specifically, a tummy tuck, liposuction, and a breast reduction.
With the scrutiny of the media on her now-famous son and her by proxy of acting as his manager, she thought she would have the procedures done to feel better about her body now that she was essentially a public figure and a focus of the paparazzi.
She eventually settled on a surgeon, Dr. Jan Adams, as the one to perform the cosmetic operation. Dr. Adams was something of a celebrity plastic surgeon and even had his own plastic surgery show on the Discovery Health Channel called “Plastic Surgery: Before and After.”
6. HER COSMETIC SURGEON HAS A DARK PAST
However, Adams was not the first surgeon West consulted. In fact, she had met earlier with an unnamed surgeon who actually refused to operate on Dr. West after it was determined that West was at risk for a heart attack, according to the LA Times.
Dr. West suffered from chronic health problems such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and cardiac artery blockage and
Dr. Adams failed to perform a physical to determine whether or not his patient was healthy enough to have the procedure done in the first place. If he had done so, it’s possible Donda would still be alive today.
In addition to his questionable decision to operate on a high-risk patient such as West, Dr. Adam's past has been called into question by those who blame Donda’s death on him.
7. HER SURGEON WAS ARRESTED FOR DRUNK DRIVING
Adams has had two drunk driving arrests in the past that have caused many to call into question his credentials and ability to make the kind of judgment calls needed to be a surgeon. In one instance, he was sentenced to one year in jail in 2009.
But perhaps more alarmingly than his drunk driving arrests are the multiple times he has been sued for malpractice. In 2007, he was sued along with several other doctors who had performed a tummy tuck for botching the job.
It’s not unheard of for doctors to be sued by patients but the fact that Adams has reportedly paid out an estimated $500,000 in civil settlements over the years gives these suits the impression that at least some of them might have been due to legitimate malpractice.
In the years since her passing, there has been public back and forth between the West family and the surgeon who performed her procedures, Dr. Jan Adams.
Recently Kanye shared a screenshot of a text conversation with a friend in which he said he would use Dr. Adams mugshot from a drunk driving arrest as the cover of his new album, prompting the cosmetic surgeon to threaten legal action.
However, it should be noted that Donda did not die during surgery as is often claimed. She decided, against the advice of Dr. Adams to receive post-operative care at a medical facility, to recover at home the day following her surgery.
8. DONDA WENT AGAINST DOCTOR’S ORDERS
On November 9, 2007, Dr. West walked in and out of Adams’ clinic after 5 ½ hours of surgery, able to walk yet heavily bandaged, and prescribed Vicodin for the pain. Dr. West herself opted to return home despite the fact that it was recommended she receive post-operative care by medical professionals at an in-patient facility.
9. HER CAREGIVER LEFT HER TO GO TO A BABY SHOWER
Dr. West was left in the care of her nephew, registered nurse Steven Scoggins. Two other people, described as “caregivers,” were also there. Scoggins spent the night at Dr. West’s house and left the next day to attend a baby shower. Scoggins told officials that Dr. West was feeling well enough that day that it was agreed he would come back that night.
10. DONDA’S BEST FRIEND WAS LEFT TO CARE FOR HER
However, before Scoggins could return that night, Dr. West was found by one of her caregivers cold to the touch in her bed and not breathing. She was described in her final hours as breathing heavily.
The unidentified woman was not a medical professional and, in the absence of a trained nurse, she was not capable of handling what happened next.
11. HER CAREGIVER FAILED TO FOLLOW 911’S ADVICE
Her caregiver made a frantic 911 call that is frankly difficult to listen to. In it, we hear what sounds to be an older woman (allegedly Donda’s best friend) and a younger woman described as Dr. West’s assistant tell the 911 Dispatcher that Donda is cold and clammy and not breathing.
The dispatcher does his best to try and walk the two women through performing CPR but they do not appear to be listening carefully as precious minutes go by. The two women panic and do not listen to the dispatcher’s instructions on how to perform CPR.
By the time EMTs arrive on the scene and transport Donda to the hospital, she would tragically pass away after allegedly being given 20 Vicodin in less than 24 hours, considerably more than the recommended dosage.
The final coroner’s report listed Donda West's death as being due to “coronary artery disease and multiple post-operative factors due to or as a consequence of liposuction and mammoplasty.”
12. DONDA’S DEATH CHANGED KANYE (AND HIS CAREER)
In the decade that followed his mother’s death, Kanye West would publicly unravel as his career weathered controversy after controversy. Sadly, his career and artistic achievements often take a backseat ride to his highly-publicized struggles with mental health.
Understanding the painful, confusing, and tragic circumstances of not just his mother’s death, but the death of his earliest and most ardent supporter can help place his often bizarre behavior in a much more sympathetic light.
As the world gears up to hear his 10th studio album named after his mother, we should keep in mind that even the biggest stars among us are real people, with real lives and are touched by the same tragic circumstances we all experience.
And hopefully, we remember to celebrate the life of the woman who gave birth to and helped shape one of the greatest musical artists of our time while we finally get to hear the album named in her memory.