Kanye West's Childhood Home Is Being Turned Into A Museum
Here's one bright spot in the recent avalanche of Kanye West news: the Chicago home where the rapper grew up and first discovered his creative impulse will soon serve as a community arts incubator, according to Refinery 29.
The home was purchased earlier this month by Donda's House, an arts education non-profit named after West's mother Dr. Donda West, who died in 2007, according to an Instagram post by Rhymefest, an Oscar and Grammy award-winning rapper and the creative director of the organization. The arts center will feature a recording studio and a museum dedicated to Chicago music.
"I'm excited to announce the purchase of Kanye's childhood home as a community Arts incubator," Rhymefest wrote, alongside a shot of himself on the front steps of the home on Instagram. "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."
The home will now serve as the permanent headquarters for Donda's House's programming and community events, according to a fundraising page set up to support the efforts. Rhymefest also revealed to Billboard that he hopes to buy up more properties to provide homes and jobs for the organization's students. "This is the beginning of the rebuilding of our community," he told the magazine.
Before they co-founded the organization, West and Rhymefest, whose real name is Che Smith, met as 15-year olds and started rapping together in the West's home, where he was deeply influenced by Donda West, an English professor who fully supported the young artists' passions.
"It was like she touched my forehead and brought the light out," Rhymefest told Billboard earlier this month.
West, who now serves on the board of the non-profit, has often spoken about his mother's influence, so it's no surprise that he'd want her real home to be the base for Donda's House, and to continue to inspire other Chicago teens there today.
"She really supported me and she always wanted me to be the best that I could be and not get hung up on the small things," Kanye told Ellen DeGeneres in a 2008 interview.
Kanye West visited his former home back in 2011 with Jay-Z during the Chicago stop of their "Watch The Throne" tour and documented it on video for an online series on VOYR.
In the clip, the pair talks as they stroll around the small, fenced in yard. "It always seemed so much bigger when I was a kid," Kanye muses.
The home does look modest indeed, so it will be interesting to see how the organization turns it into an education center, concert venue and museum.
Get a glimpse of the home in the clip below (jump to 2:17 to see the house):
h/t: Refinery29
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