KANYE’S GRANDSON: LEGACY

I’ve been thinking about artistic bloodlines…

Not influence.

Bloodlines.

Take 2Pac and Kendrick.

Whether Kendrick is Pac’s successor isn’t even the interesting part. The interesting part is that people keep having the conversation. They occupy similar territory. They ask similar questions. After Kendrick, though, the tree gets a little shaky. Baby Keem is still becoming himself. Jaden speaks about Kendrick like a student speaks about a teacher. Tyler put Kendrick at the top of LA. That’s respect. Whether it becomes lineage, time will decide.

The Ye tree feels different.

Donald Glover settled that conversation years ago.

During a 2013 interview on The Breakfast Club, he said:

"“I’m… I can go where Kanye can’t. Like Kanye talks about the glass wall and he’s right, man. It sucks. He’s a genius to me. I think he can do amazing things for humans and they won’t let him. I am the son of Kanye.” "

Childish Gambino at The Breakfast Club Power 105.1

Inheritance.

Kanye fought for permission to become more than one thing. Glover inherited that fight and carried it further.

Here’s where I part ways with my family.

"There is no glass wall."

INVERMON (Jul. 29th 2026)

...At least, not one I’ve seen. Maybe there used to be.

Maybe Ye shattered it.

Maybe ’Bino climbed through the cracks.

Or maybe I just grew up looking in a different direction.

I was bullied for not speaking pidgin “properly.” For planning too much instead of just doing. For drawing comics with kids younger than me instead of acting my age. Looking back, none of those things had anything to do with race. They had everything to do with refusing to fit whatever box happened to be in front of me.

Maybe that’s why the idea of a glass wall has never really settled in my head.

When I sit down to make music, I don’t think about making Black music. I don’t think about making Nigerian music. I don’t think about making music for white people either.

I think about making something good enough to outlive me.

Maybe that’s naive.

Maybe I’ll meet the wall one day.

Maybe I already have and just called it something else. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’d rather spend my life building than rehearsing for barriers I haven’t met.

I have something Ye and ‘Bino don’t.

A direct line back home.

I get to move forward in art while moving backwards into ancestry. Not because Africa needs my permission to matter but because it's mine.

The first thing I’ll chase is ownership. The platforms, the spaces, the crafts... To own every tool and instrument I'll use to create.

The second is freedom. Freedom to express myself without fear of being too big or being too provocative. The freedom to be as masculine and as feminine as they think I am but still be able to subvert their expectations with what I've made.

The last is legacy. Something worth inheriting. Something that lets the next kid build without asking whether they’re allowed to imagine beyond the lane they were handed.

Donald Glover called himself the son of Kanye.

I understand exactly what he meant.

Like it or not…

I’m Kanye’s grandson.

Now I’ve got work to do.