Ye visited his childhood home in Chicago this week and his day ones Don C, Rhymefest, GLC and Really Doe came along for the moment.
On Tuesday (Sept. 22), the group gathered at 7815 S. South Shore Drive as 78th Street at South Shore Drive was officially renamed Dr. Donda West Way in honor of Ye’s late mother. Ye bought the home in 2018 after it was facing demolition, preserving the place where his artist journey began.
The guys used the occasion to reminisce about their memories of Donda, including her “light” roasts, visits to her favorite Jamaican restaurant Maxine’s and her business acumen.
“People always talk about the great educator Ms. West was, but Ms. West was also an amazing business person,” Don said at the ceremony. “She was an entrepreneur, she was an investor. She started this, from a business standpoint. She made it official. The dreams of Ye was very like, really rugged dreams, and she gathered them and was his backbone to move to New York and to pursue his dreams further and to put the company together, which eventually became a billion-dollar business.”
Donda West wrote about raising Ye in the South Shore home in her 2007 memoir, Raising Kanye: Life Lessons from the Mother of a Hip-Hop Superstar. She died later that year at age 58.
Check out photos and videos from the street-naming ceremony below.
Watch Ye at the Dr. Donda West Way Street-Naming Ceremony
See Rappers With Honorary Days
