Imagine Kanye West playing Jay Gatbsy instead of Leonardo Di Caprio in The Great Gatsby. The artist who goes by the name Ye now is not afraid to be outspoken and make big and bold statements that have kept him in the spotlight for a long. The man who has an estimated net worth of $7 billion is also known for having encrypted messages in his songs that often have a deep meaning surrounding topics like minimalism and capitalism.

The self-taught artist who owns a private school recently made a revelation about never reading a book. But some of the legendary hip hop artists like Tupac Shakur have beautifully woven centuries of literary work through the music. This includes the Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory album which was under the alias name Makaveli (a variation of 16th-century author Machiavelli). So when West was compared to one of the greatest literary pieces in history, it left people wondering about hip hop’s connection with books.

Kanye West, as the Gatsby of the hip-hop world

Kanye West once compared reading to eating Brussel sprouts. So when A.D. Carson, who is an assistant professor of hip hop at the University of Virginia compared Ye to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, it left a lot to explain. In a source, the author pointed out how we see traces of great literature and book in general sprinkled all over the hip-hop songs. This also proves that the hip-hop culture is actually rich, and not a mere trendy genre for the young. Ye’s comparison to Jay Gatsby may offend literature fanatics but there may be some commonalities between these two real and reel larger-than-life characters.

To begin, both Ye and Jay (with their coincidentally similar names) are known to have lavish lives. Gatsby spends thousands of dollars on random parties and clothes. Ye on the other hand has spent millions on shoes and got himself a gold toilet worth $1 million along with his ex-wife Kim Kardashian. This brings us to the main similarity of both losing the love of their life.

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Kim’s much public departure from Kanye’s life can be roughly compared to Jay’s Daisy leaving him to marry another man. Now, Ye’s war of words with Kim’s new love Pete Davidson was quite hilarious. But roughly mirrors Jay’s loathing for Daisy’s husband Tom Buchanan pretty well.

So although the Praise God singer will probably never read much into it, one cannot deny the hip-hop stars’ resemblance with the center character of one of the greatest pieces in history.