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Musicians

What is Kanye West’s IQ?
The only figure here supplied by its own subject.

Kanye West at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival
Kanye Westb. 1977 · Music, production, design

Almost every number on this site was invented by somebody else. West’s is the exception: he announced it himself, on a livestream, and no test report has ever surfaced to support it.

Our estimate115–130
MethodAchievement and academic record
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Last reviewed August 2026
Our estimate

Kanye West’s estimated IQ

IQ Metrics estimate115–130Achievement and academic record
What the estimate rests on
  • A scholarship to the American Academy of Art in Chicago in 1997, followed by a transfer to Chicago State University to study English, and a decision to leave at twenty without completing the degree.
  • An established production career before he recorded as an artist, including work on Jay-Z’s The Blueprint in 2001 — technical craft acknowledged by peers long before the public knew his name.
  • Twenty-four Grammy Awards, among the most won by any rapper.
  • A second career in footwear and apparel design that built one of the highest-revenue signature lines in the industry before it ended in 2022.

A production and design record is evidence of unusual craft and drive. It is not a cognitive measurement, and the self-reported 133 cannot be used to narrow the band because no examiner, instrument or score report has ever accompanied it.

At a glance
Born
8 June 1977, Atlanta, Georgia
Field
Music production, performance, apparel design
Education
American Academy of Art, 1997; Chicago State University, left at twenty without completing
Honorary
Doctorate, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2015
Claimed
133, self-reported on a livestream in October 2018
Known for
The College Dropout, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, the Yeezy line
Context

What an IQ of 115–130 actually means

Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.

Where a figure of 133 would sitOn the standard scale (mean 100, SD 15). This marks the claimed figure — it is not a measured result.
133
Below averageLow averageAverageAbove averageGiftedHighly gifted

Average is 100 by construction, and about two-thirds of people fall between 85 and 115. Take the test to place your own score on this scale.

Standard scale, mean 100, standard deviation 15
Score rangeClassificationShare of peopleWhat it indicates
85 – 114Average~68%The range most people fall into.
115 – 129Above average~13.6%Roughly one person in seven.
130 – 144Gifted~2%The threshold most high-IQ societies use.
Above 144Highly gifted~0.1%Figures above this range are extrapolated from the curve rather than measured.

Percentages are approximate and describe a normal distribution. The same number means different things on tests with different standard deviations.

Where would your score sit on that table?

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Background

Who Kanye West is

Kanye West was born in Atlanta in 1977 and raised in Chicago. His mother, Dr Donda West, was a professor of English and chaired the English department at Chicago State University — the institution he later attended and left.

He built a reputation as a producer in the late 1990s and early 2000s, notably on Jay-Z’s The Blueprint, before releasing The College Dropout in 2004. The album’s title refers directly to the decision this page turns on. He has since won twenty-four Grammy Awards and built a major apparel and footwear business.

In October 2022 Adidas ended its partnership with him following a series of antisemitic public statements, which also cost him several other commercial relationships. He received an honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015.

Record

Kanye West: the documented record

The estimate above rests on this record. Every entry here is a matter of public fact, which is more than can be said for the number itself.

  1. 1977Born in Atlanta; raised in Chicago.
  2. 1997Wins a scholarship to the American Academy of Art in Chicago.
  3. 1998Transfers to Chicago State University to study English, then leaves at twenty to pursue music production.
  4. 2001Produces tracks on Jay-Z’s The Blueprint.
  5. 2004Releases The College Dropout.
  6. 2015Receives an honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
  7. 2018Discloses a bipolar diagnosis on the cover of ye.
  8. 2018Announces a score of 133 on an October livestream from Uganda.
  9. 2022Adidas ends the Yeezy partnership following antisemitic statements.
Where it came from

Where the 133 figure came from

Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.

Kanye West at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival
2018The year he announced the number himself

The 133 has an exact date and an exact speaker, which is rarer than it sounds. West announced it in October 2018 on a Periscope livestream from Uganda, where he was recording Yandhi, adding that the score put him at the 98th percentile. Contemporary music press reported it the same week.

Everything after that is missing. Which test, administered by whom, on what date, and scored against which norms are all unknown. Those four facts are what separate a score from an assertion, and none of them has ever been supplied. Mensa’s own policy of not disclosing members’ scores closes the only external route to checking it.

There is a second substitution worth naming here, because it is made constantly in public commentary about West. He disclosed a bipolar diagnosis on the cover of ye in 2018. A psychiatric diagnosis is not a statement about intelligence in either direction, and treating erratic public behaviour as evidence about IQ is a category error in exactly the same family as treating a Mensa claim as a measurement.

Compare Brian May, the other musician here with a strong claim to academic credentials. May completed a doctorate in astrophysics, submitted and examined, which is why his page can lean on it. West left university at twenty and has offered a number instead. The difference between those two pages is the difference between a record and a report.

How we read a number
PrimaryPeriscope livestream, Uganda, October 2018

The single origin of the 133. West states the figure and the percentile himself. Reported contemporaneously by the music press. No test, examiner or score report accompanies it.

InstitutionalMensa policy on member scores

Mensa does not publish members’ test results, so the “Mensa level” framing cannot be independently confirmed or refuted.

AbsenceNo score report, examiner or instrument on record

Searched: interviews, profiles and the contemporaneous coverage of the livestream. Eight years on, none of the four facts that would turn this claim into a result has been supplied.

InstitutionalChicago State University; American Academy of Art

The enrolment record is checkable; the departure at twenty without a completed degree is well documented and is the subject of his 2004 album title.

SecondaryContemporary reporting on the October 2018 livestream

Consequence and other outlets covered the claim within days, which is how the date and wording can be fixed precisely.

The evidence

The sources behind our estimate

The figures that circulate for Kanye West, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.

Most widely cited133

133, described as “Mensa level”, and stated by West himself in an October 2018 livestream while recording in Uganda: “I just got back my IQ scores. It is Mensa level — 133, 98 percentile.”

What we foundSelf-reported, with no test, examiner or report ever produced

This is the cleanest self-report in the section, and it is still unverifiable. No test name has been given, no examiner identified, and no score report published. Mensa does not disclose members’ scores, so the “Mensa level” framing cannot be checked from that side either. A self-reported figure is not worthless — it is a claim by the person best placed to know — but it is not a result, and the distinction is the whole point of this site.

Also published elsewhere
133

Only one number circulates here, because only one was ever offered, and it came from him. That makes this profile unusually clean and no better evidenced: a single unverified figure repeated widely is still a single unverified figure.

Want a number that does hold up? Every figure on this page is somebody’s claim. Take the 30-question test and get a percentile you can check rather than a figure you have to trust.

Questions

Kanye West — frequently asked

What is Kanye West’s IQ?

The only figure in circulation is 133, and West reported it himself on a livestream in October 2018. No test, examiner or score report has ever been produced, so it cannot be verified.

Is Kanye West in Mensa?

He described his score as “Mensa level”, which is not the same as membership. Mensa does not publish members’ scores, so the claim cannot be checked from that direction.

Is a self-reported IQ worth anything?

It is better evidence than an anonymous aggregator figure, because it is attributable. It is still not a result: a score needs a named instrument, an examiner, a date and norms, and none was given.

Did Kanye West finish university?

No. He won a scholarship to the American Academy of Art in 1997, transferred to Chicago State University to study English, and left at twenty. The College Dropout takes its title from that decision.

Does his bipolar diagnosis affect his IQ?

No. A psychiatric diagnosis is not a statement about intelligence in either direction, and treating public behaviour as evidence about IQ is the same category error this whole section documents.

How does this compare with other musicians here?

Brian May holds an examined doctorate in astrophysics, which is a record rather than a report. Taylor Swift has no figure of her own at all — hers was invented by other people.

How does my IQ compare with Kanye West?

You can find out in about fifteen minutes. The IQ Metrics assessment is 30 questions, scored on the same 100-mean scale used throughout this page, so your result and the estimate above are at least expressed in the same units — one measured, one inferred. Once you have a number, the leaderboard shows where it would sit, and how we score and norm it explains the benchmarking.

Where does this estimate come from?

From the documented record rather than a test — the method is named above and set out in full under how we read a number. Compare it against the other musicians profiles, starting with Brian May.

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Portrait © Matthew Yohe, CC BY-SA 3.0. The background-removed portrait above is a derivative work and is likewise offered under the same licence. · Portrait © Debbie Rowe / The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 3.0. The background-removed portrait above is a derivative work and is likewise offered under the same licence. · Portrait by Christopher Smith, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — a work of the U.S. federal government, public domain. Background removed for the portrait above.

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