Kanye West buys his Chicago childhood home

Newly proclaimed billionaire Kanye West has quietly purchased his Chicago childhood home, according to a WGN report.

The selling price for the South Shore home (bought by West’s mother in the late 1980s and sold in 2004) was around $225,000, and permits have been issued for an additional $60,000 in renovations/repairs, according to the story. The home on South Shore Drive has been empty and boarded up for several years.

West called Chicago home from the time he was a toddler until he was 20, and, according to 2018 Sun-Times report, the rapper — whose current homes include a Calabasas, California, mansion shared with his superstar wife Kim Kardashian West and their four children — “vowed” he was moving back to Chicago and “never leaving again.” West also owns a $14 million ranch in Wyoming.

Fellow Chicago rapper Che “Rhymefest” Smith bought the property in 2016 on behalf of the former Donda’s House Foundation (named in honor of West’s late mother, Chicago State University professor Donda West) to house the non-profit’s new community “arts incubator” (recording studio, museum and educational center). The Chicago charity — founded in 2011 by West, Rhymefest and Donnie Smith — was rebranded Art of Culture, Inc., in 2018, to distance it from West after his public comments about President Trump and a heated Twitter feud between Kardashian West and Rhymefest over the future of the organization.

Art of Culture, Inc. is currently headquartered at Walter H. Dyett High School for the Arts.