After reaching billionaire status, Kanye West has made a new real estate purchase.
According to a report from Chicago's WGN 9 on Friday (April 24), West has bought his childhood home, which was previously owned by his late mother, Donda West.
The house originally belonged to the West family from the 1980s to 2004, until it was sold by Kanye's mother. After they placed the home on the market, the property went through foreclosures, according to the Chicago Business' real estate reporter Dennis Rodkin.
"It went through a lot of trouble after that," Rodkin WGN 9. "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."
Initially, Kanye and Rhymefest planned to convert the home into a center for ’Ye's Donda House program. However, there was much back-and-forth over the home, which likely resulted in the original plans not coming to fruition. Back in May of 2018, Rhymefest posted several tweets, accusing ’Ye of abandoning Donda House, a nonprofit organization founded by Kanye, Rhymefest and Donnie Smith back in 2011.
"We ask that as you boycott and protest Kanye West, that you not forget that we are a non-profit organization that like other non-profits needs donations, corporate support and volunteers," the organization said in a statement at the time. "We do not want your rejection of Kanye West, to be a rejection of Dr. Donda West and the thousands of lives she impacted including her own son."
The following day, Rhymefest tweeted Drake, asking him to donate to Donda House. Rhymefest's request came after Drizzy tweeted an invoice to Kanye's G.O.O.D. Music, addressed to Pusha-T for "promotional assistance and career reviving" during their beef. Drake had just released his "Duppy Freestyle" aimed at Pusha.
Kanye's wife, Kim Kardashian-West, stepped in to call Rhymefest out over the comments he made via social media. "U haven’t been right since u got kicked out of the studio in Hawaii wearing fake Yeezy’s @RHYMEFEST 😂," wrote Kim, after the Chicago native requested that Drake help fund Donda's House Inc. "You’re over levergenging Kanye’s name & asked Kanye to donate money to u so stop w your fake community politics & lies. Truth is you haven’t been able to sustain the foundation."
Not to be outdone, Kim continued her Twitter rant, claiming that Rhymefest was more interested in making music, rather than assisting the Donda House. "I saw you at our studio a few weeks ago so why didn’t you bring this up then @RHYMEFEST ?" she said at the time. "You were trying to get Kanye to listen to your sub par beats. You have the audacity to use Kanye’s mom name to try to shead a negative light on Kanye."
Rhymefest later responded to Kim in an open letter, addressing both Kim and Kanye. "At this point, if you and Kanye want us to dissolve the organization so you can do the work, we welcome that. As we will continue from our home on the South Side of Chicago, to do what we can to support the community we've worked five years to build in spite of you & Kanye's lack of interest or support. You've been not privy to the conversations that we've had, the emails that have been sent, and frankly, the positive press that Kanye has received as a result of our work," he wrote towards the closing of his letter.
Kanye's former collaborator announced in 2016 that he purchased Yeezy's former childhood home "as a community Arts incubator" for their organization. Donda House was launched in honor of ’Ye's mother as a means of providing art instruction for the youth in Chicago.
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