M.K/anye-Ultra

Celebrity and social engineering or: How to groom a superstar

“So the powers that be won’t let me get my ideas out

And that make me wanna get my advance out

And move to Oklahoma and just live at my aunt’s house.” - Kanye West, “Gone”

Kanye West may be one of the most famous artists to ever represent the city of Chicago, Illinois. However, his roots run deep in The Sooner State of Oklahoma, where his grandfather, Portwood Williams, Sr. was born and raised. Portwood Williams, Sr. enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1944 and though little is known of his military service, it appears that he was not deployed, as WWII was coming to a close at the time. Portwood Williams and his wife, Lucille E. Williams would give birth to Donda Williams in Oklahoma City in 1949. Portwood Williams was reportedly a close friend of Clara Luper, a schoolteacher and prominent figure in the Oklahoma civil rights movement, who earned her master’s degree in education at the University of Oklahoma in 1951. Luper also served as the Director for Youth Services to the OKC chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

In 1958, Clara Luper would be instrumental in the rise of civil rights activism that made Oklahoma City a national hotspot for media attention. Luper made it her goal to desegregate local businesses in Oklahoma City through various forms of activism, including protests and sit-ins. Her first target was a local market and eatery called Katz Drug Store. After allegedly sending many letters to the business, voicing her concerns, only to be ignored, Clara Luper decided it was time to act. In August of 1958, Luper organized a group of her NAACP youth members to enter Katz Drug Store and hold a sit-in, demanding to be served. The man who drove the first car, leading the caravan of protesters to Katz was none other than Portwood Williams, Sr., with his young son and daughter, Donda, joining him. On a track titled “Never Let Me Down,” from Kanye West’s debut album, The College Dropout, West raps about his mother’s experience, saying “at the tender age of six, she was arrested for the sit-ins and with that in my blood, I was born to be different.” This line appears out of sync with the events of the time, considering that in 1958, Donda would have been about nine years old, rather than six, as Kanye claims.

However, this story becomes all the more interesting when you consider the other players who are active in the Oklahoma City scene at this time. Enter Dr. Louis Jolyon “Jolly” West. Jolly West enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1944, the same year as Portwood Williams, Sr. Jolly West, too, was never deployed and instead was sent to Iowa State University to study medicine in the Army Specialist Training program. He later received his psychiatry M.D. from University of Minnesota School of Medicine and continued his military career with the U.S. Air Force, after completing a residency at the Payne Whitney Clinic of New York University (Cornell). In 1954, Jolly West was appointed full professor and chair of the psychiatry department at University of Oklahoma, in Oklahoma City at just 29 years old, an unusually young age for such a position. Meanwhile, Donda Williams attended elementary school at Culbertson and Dunbar Elementary, only a few short blocks from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine.

During his time at University of Oklahoma, Jolly West began actively participating in the civil rights movement, enlisting a close friend, actor Charlton Heston, to join him and drum up publicity for the protests. He would also bring along a colleague, Chester M. Pierce, a black psychiatrist who had studied at Harvard Medical School. Chester M. Pierce was also a Commander in the U.S. Navy and served as a Neuropsychiatrist for the military. Pierce moved to Oklahoma City in 1960 to serve on staff at the Veterans Affairs Hospital Psychiatry Service. Jolly West and Chester Pierce would collaborate on a study, published in 1966, titled “Six Years of Sit-Ins: Psychodynamic Causes & Effects,” which identified and observed the tactics of activists in the fledgling movement. The pair of psychiatrists highlight their method of “utilizing rapport” with the protesters by demonstrating alongside them as a means of gathering interviews and data on the movement.

In 1967, Jolly West left University of Oklahoma for San Francisco, ground zero for the “Summer of Love.” There, he and his staff established what would become the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, where they could observe and study the psychedelic counterculture that created an environment of rampant promiscuous sex and drug use. Later, the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic would be routinely visited by a man by the name of Charles Manson and the young girls who followed him, which Manson referred to as “The Family.”

In 1969, Jolly West moved to Los Angeles to become chairperson of the Psychiatry Department at UCLA and eventually Director of UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute. It would not be until decades later that Louis Jolyon West’s involvement in the CIA’s MK Ultra mind control program would be widely revealed. Jolly West’s associate and collaborator at University of Oklahoma, Chester Pierce, would also leave University of Oklahoma in 1969; moving to Boston, Massachusetts, where he would accept positions at Harvard Medical School, Harvard Graduate School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Pierce would retire in 1997 with the title of Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical and Professor Emeritus of Education at Harvard Graduate.

Donda Williams became a career academic, graduating Frederick Douglass High School in Oklahoma City in 1967 and going on to study at: Virginia Union University, Atlanta University, Auburn University, University of Oklahoma (Norman), New Delhi University (India); she even enrolled in Russian Studies at Iowa State University. In 1973, Donda Williams married Ray West, a former Black Panther, while working at Spelman College; an institution established by the wife of John D. Rockefeller. The two had only dated for three months prior to their engagement and subsequent marriage. They gave birth to Kanye Omari West in 1977 and were divorced by 1980, which led to Donda and Kanye’s move to Chicago. Little is known of Ray West’s early life, aside from his brief affiliation with the Black Panther Party. He was born in Tucson, Arizona and his father served as a Master Sergeant in the U.S. Army. He allegedly worked as a “vacuum salesman” in Kanye’s youth and an aerial photojournalist for an Atlanta newspaper. He eventually moved to Washington D.C., where Kanye spent the majority of his summers as a child, and has photographed well-known figures such as Ronald Reagan and Maya Angelou.

Donda’s teaching career began at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, where she worked as English professor and was promoted to chairperson of the English Department. After moving to Chicago, she rose through the ranks of the English Department at Chicago State University, from assistant to associate to full professor and eventually was also elected to chairperson of the English and Speech Department at CSU. During her tenure at CSU, Donda received a Fulbright scholarship (a CIA-funded program) and was sent as a Foreign Expert to The People’s Republic of China, teaching English at Nanjing University, where a 10-year old Kanye would accompany her. 

Kanye would eventually study English at Chicago State for one year, before dropping out to pursue music. After 26 years at Chicago State University, Donda would retire from academia to manage Kanye’s music career. Kanye’s brief stint in CSU would become the basis for the marketing scheme of his debut album, The College Dropout, as well as a near-fatal car accident that sparked his first single, “Through The Wire.” The song recounts Kanye’s struggle to make it as an artist and his perseverance, even in the face of the life-threatening crash. The concept of the song suggested that Kanye had recorded his vocals while his jaw was still wired shut from injuries sustained during the accident. While this was the case for the original demo, the studio recording was re-cut once the wires were removed. As his grandfather, Portwood Williams Sr. was reportedly fond of stating: “You got to have a story!”

Donda was instrumental in establishing contacts for Kanye early in his career. In fact, a fellow Chicago teacher, who became a friend of Donda West, was the mother of Chicago hip-hop producer, No I.D. Donda urged No I.D. to take Kanye on as a mentor and teach him how to make beats when Kanye was just 14 years old. Kanye would produce for many local Chicago hip-hop artists before eventually moving to Newark, New Jersey to find his big break in nearby New York City. The rest is history. Kanye went on to work with the biggest artists in music as a producer, before being signed as a solo artist to Jay-Z and Damon Dash’s Rocafella Records, in 2003 and becoming a multi-platinum, global superstar.

In November, 2007, Donda West died due to complications following a cosmetic surgery that took place at an undisclosed surgical facility. Her death was attributed to various factors, including underlying heart disease. Jan Adams, the doctor who performed the operation, attended Harvard University in 1977 and graduated from Ohio State University College of Medicine in 1985. He completed his surgical training at UCLA. Adams denies malpractice in the incident, stating that the procedure was a success and claims that Kanye’s cousin, a registered nurse, was responsible for Donda’s post-operative care. To date, Donda West’s precise cause of death is unknown. In 2017, after canceling a stop on his Saint Pablo tour mid-performance, Kanye West was admitted for hospitalization to the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute; the same institution where Dr. Louis Jolyon West had been appointed Director until he resigned in 1989, continuing his work as a professor of Psychiatry, prior to his death in 1999.

In 2021 and 2022, Kanye West released his 10th and 11th solo studio albums, respectively titled “DONDA” and “DONDA 2”.

“I’ma make my name last. Put that on my last name.” - Kanye West, “I Thought About Killing You”