Who knew Kanye West lived in China before?
In what feels like a sort of homecoming, the 47-year-old American rapper performed a sold-out arena in Hainan on Sunday (September 15).
Before the show, Kanye took to Instagram to share a picture from his time in Nanjing when he was 10.
Captioned, “BACK”, the pic showed a young Kanye sitting below a flight of steps that led up to what seems like a mountain.
Kanye and his mum Donda had made the move to China for a year when she accepted a role as a lecturer at the Nanjing University as part of a Fulbright Scholarship.
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Naturally, the only foreigner in class when he was enrolled in a local elementary school, Kanye quickly picked up Mandarin and even learned to ride a bicycle when he was there.
Kanye credited Donda for homeschooling him before their move saying he did so well that he was placed two grades above his age groups for many subjects.
According to Donda, he even developed a love for lamb skewers. However, Donda refused to buy them for him as she didn’t trust the hygiene conditions of street vendors.
Instead, Kanye found a way around – by showing off his breakdancing skills in exchange for skewers behind her back.
Liu Haping, who was Donda’s former colleague and the head of the Foreign Language Department at Nanjing University, also recalled Kanye’s breakdancing as a kid in 1988.
Haiping shared that it was during a gathering over dumplings that he got to see Kanye show off his skills to everyone.
Of course, what is Ye without a little rebellion, right?
In true Kanye fashion, he rebelled against a teacher who asked that students not wear a certain type of gloves during class.
What ensued was a tug-of-war over the gloves between Kanye and the teacher, with the latter being kicked, resulting in his mum being called to the school.
Kanye also once shared in an interview that “being in China got me ready to be a celeb”.
“At that time, a lot of Chinese had never seen a black person. They would always come up and stare at me, fishbowl me, and everything. And that’s kind of the way it is for me right now,” he said.
Kanye even said some would daringly approach him and touch his face thinking he had paint on.
However, he admitted in the interview that each visit back to China was an emotional one.
“It takes me right back to fifth grade with my mum,” says Kanye.
In 2008, the rapper even took posted a message to Sohu looking for people he had lived and played with during his time in Nanjing.
“I hope to find people who were in Nanjing at that time and knew a little black boy. Please contact me if you do!” Kanye wrote.