Kanye West is officially a billionaire but that hasn’t stopped him from remembering where he came from. According to WGN 9, the Jesus Is King rapper recently purchased his childhood home in Chicago for $225,000.
West’s mother Donda owned the home back in the early 1980s and sold it in 2004.
“It went through a lot of trouble after that,” said real estate reporter Dennis Rodkin. “It’s on South Shore Drive in the South Shore neighborhood. It went through foreclosure and several years ago a foundation that Kanye was involved with, but Rhymefest — one of Kanye’s collaborators — bought it.”
Rodkin said that they initially planned to make it into an “arts incubator” but that plan was axed.
“Then they announced, ‘we’re going to have to tear the house down because it would cost less to build a new one than to rehab this because it’s been empty for years,’” said Rodkin.
Rhymefest previously purchased the home and planned to turn it into a center for Donda’s House, West’s non-profit organization named after his late mother.
“I’m excited to announce the purchase of Kanye’s childhood home as a community Arts incubator,” the Blue Collar rapper wrote on Instagram in 2016. “It will be the first of our Nationwide Lite-Houses. A state of the art recording studio, a curriculum space for @dondashouse and southside music museum. We want to show bright spots in communities that’ve been divested from, we know more Lights exist here, they just need to be activated.”
Back in 2018, Rhymefest took to Twitter to accuse ‘Ye of abandoning the Donda’s House organization. Kim Kardashian-West jumped in to defend her husband saying Rhymefest tried to use Donda’s name to bring negative attention to the Yeezy creator.
Renovations for the home will cost around $60,000. Check out a video of his childhood home below.