Kanye West told Rich the Kid he would ‘retire from professional music’

Rich the Kid has revealed an alleged text conversation with Kanye West showing the ‘Donda’ rapper announcing he’s ‘retiring from professional music’.

Yesterday (9 July), Rich the Kid shared a screenshot of a text conversation with West – who now goes by Ye – seemingly saying he was going to walk away from the professional music scene.

The ‘Talk to Me’ rapper took to his Instagram stories to share the screenshot in a post which has since been deleted.

The conversation is dated as being from ‘Today 12:45pm’ and sees a contact called ‘Ye’ announce: “I am retiring from professional music. Not sure what else to do.”

The other user replies: “Retire? Why? How? The ppl NEED you the music you & Ty & we have made was the BIGGEST STAMP in culture to this date.
“In 2024.
“Drop Ye about mine & V2 and we do it all over again the kids need you big bra fasho maybe some time to chill but retiring ain’t it.”

And it’s not taken long for people to flood to social media to weigh in.

One Twitter user said: “Lol.. nobody cares.. he can retire alright.”

“His music has been trash for the last decade,” a second wrote.

A third commented: “Best news I’ve gotten all day.”

“I mean his bars are washed but that don’t mean I don’t wanna hear him get better bars or continue making great beats,” a fourth said.

However, other users were a bit more suspicious of the supposed text conversation.

One user wrote: “We all he ain’t serious.”

Another added: “Ye announcing his retirement just to drop Vultures 2 & 3 + plus his solo album all next week (I’m delusional).”

Indeed, all doesn’t appear to be quite as it seems.

Rich the Kid took to Twitter to respond to an outlet’s reporting of Ye ‘retiring’.

The rapper reshared the article, adding a song list to his upcoming fourth studio album titled Life’s a Gamble which is currently scheduled for release on 19 July, 2024.

The album is executively produced by Ye and Ty Dolla Sign and features Ye on the songs ‘Gimme a Second 2’ and ‘Plain Jane’

Rich the Kid’s caption reads: “ACTUALLY WE DROPPING FRIDAY.”

So, it would seem Ye isn’t quite walking away from the world of professional music just yet and it was all a marketing ploy.