ACHIEVEMENTS

All of West's studio albums have gone platinum, and he holds the record for having the most consecutive studio albums to debut at number one on the Billboard 200.[380] His albums have received numerous awards and critical acclaim.[381] Additionally West holds the record for most appearances on MTV's Hottest MCs in the Game list as well as the most wins. West has had six songs exceed 3 million in digital sales as of December 2012 placing him third in overall digital sales of the past decade.[382][383] West has the fourth most RIAA singles certificates in history with 68 and is the highest selling rapper in the Gold, Platinum and Multi-Platinum list's.[384] On top of that he has sold over 50 million singles in the United States making him the second highest male and sixth highest selling artist of all time in singles sales.[385]

West speaks after receiving an honorary doctorate from SAIC As of 2017, West has won a total of 21 Grammy Awards making him eleventh in the list of most awarded artists of all time and sixth for most grammy nominations with 68. West is one of five artists to receive three consecutive Grammy nominations for Album of the Year along with Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Barbra Streisand and Lady Gaga. Additionally West and Gaga are the only solo artists to receive this nomination for their first three albums. In 2015 West became only the second rapper after LL Cool J to be presented the Video Vanguard Award for his lifetime contributions to MTV culture through performing arts.

About.com ranked West eighth on their "Top 50 Hip-Hop Producers" list.[386] Billboard ranked him third on their list of Top 10 Producers of the Decade.[387] West is tenth on the list of most Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hits.[388] Furthermore, he is tied with Bob Dylan for having topped the annual Pazz & Jop critic poll the most number of times ever, with four number-one albums each.[389] West has also been included twice in the Time 100 annual lists of the most influential people in the world as well as being listed in a number of Forbes annual lists.[8] In 2014, NME named him the third most influential artist in music, and was only rapper to make the top 30.[390]

In its 2012 list of "500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Rolling Stone included three of West's albums The College Dropout at number 298,[391] Late Registration at number 118,[392] and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy at number 353.[393] Pitchfork ranked My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as the world's best album of the decade "so far"—between 2010 and 2014—on August 19, 2014, while Yeezus was ranked in the eighth position of a list of 100 albums. During the same week, the song "Runaway" was ranked in the third position in the publication's list of the 200 "best tracks" released since 2010.[394][395] According to Acclaimed Music, a site which aggregates critics' reception, West is the 15th most celebrated artist in popular music history and its seventh most celebrated solo artist.[396] In 2017, West became the first artist to have an album go platinum from streaming only with The Life of Pablo.