According to TMZ, Kanye West's father, Ray West, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Sources close to the family say Ray is currently responding well to treatment in Los Angeles. TMZ reports, "We're being told that, for now, it looks like he's going to be okay."
"My father was a Black Panther," Kanye told Zane Lowe during a 2013 interview. "My father was a journalist, a paparazzi, a photojournalist. He was a paparazzi. We had a dark room in our house. Like seven years ago, he lived in a homeless shelter. Not because he was homeless, because he wanted to help the ex-drug addicts. He wanted to get that close. He started a foundation called Good Water and moved to the Dominican Republic to help right there, to help with the prostitution, to help with the extortion, to help right there, he stays in the Dominican Republic right now."
In June, Ray was seen seated next to Kanye during his son's 41st birthday as magician Lior Suchard performed tricks for the family.
This news comes nearly 11 years after Kanye West's mother, Donda West, passed away due to complications after cosmetic surgery performed by Dr. Jan Adams. The Los Angeles County Coroner explained that "coronary artery disease and multiple post-operative factors due to or as a consequence of liposuction and mammoplasty" lead to her death.
Donda's death has weighed heavily on Kanye over the last decade. Asked about the sacrifice he made for his success in 2015, West told Q Magazine, "If I had never moved to L.A. she'd be alive. I don't want to go far into it because it will bring me to tears."
