Kanye West Reflects on Overcoming Trauma from Car Accident, Leading to Unexpected Opportunities

Kanye West is one celebrity who is always in the headlines. Over the last couple of years, Ye (as he is now officially called) has been mainly in the news owing to his personal life – the most recent being his ‘marriage’ to architect Bianca Censori. But today, we aren’t here to talk about that or any other recent controversial things – we are here to talk about his 2002 accident.

In 2002, when West was still an up-and-coming artist, he made headlines for being involved in a near-fatal car accident. But the accident didn’t leave him only with scares – it helped make him what he is today. Read on to know all about how the car accident helped shape his career.

As per a Pop Sugar article, the accident happened two weeks after he signed a deal with Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records. As per the report, Ye drove home after working late at a California recording studio on Oct. 23, 2002, and fell asleep at the wheel. He crashed his car into an oncoming vehicle and was left seriously hurt. While the other car’s driver broke both legs, the rapper shattered his jaw in three places.

But this near-death experience didn’t keep Kanye West at bay from having a bright future in the music world as a rapped. In fact, it motivated him to work even harder for his debut album ‘The College Dropout’ within days, and as we know it, it changed the trajectory of his entire career.

In Netflix’s ‘Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy’ – a three-part documentary which details the rapper’s early beginnings up until 2022, director Coodie Simmons revealed the backstory behind Kanye West’s recording his hit single ‘Through the Wire.’ As per the article, two weeks after his car accident, Ye wrote the song and recorded it with his mouth still wired shut. He later rapped the song to Simmons over the phone. The director said, “A few weeks later, Kanye called me with his mouth wired shut. And I was shocked when he started rapping a new song over the phone called ‘Through the Wire.’”

Adding that Ye continued to work on music for his debut despite doctors’ orders, Coodie said, “The way he saw it, the music he was making for his album was life-changing.” And indeed, he did.

In 2014, Kanye West spoke about how crucial the recovery period after his debut was for his career. He told Interview magazine, “The accident gave me the opportunity to do what I really wanted to do. During that recovery period, I just spent all my time honing my craft and making ‘The College Dropout.’”

While we wish Kanye West never had to go through such a traumatic experience, there’s one thing for sure – if it hadn’t happened, the world wouldn’t have been introduced to some fantastic songs over the years. The debut album earned a Grammy for best rap album in 2005 and became the bestselling album of his career.