File this one under: ‘Two things we never dreamed would intersect.’ Those things would be the long-running television series
Antiques Roadshow and rapper/fashion designer/
MAGA hat-wearer Kanye West. We are truly living in amazing times.The show, which has been running on PBS for nearly 25 years, is known for its hosts’ uncanny ability to price rare and obscure objects unearthed from the closets, attics, and storage lockers of everyday Americans. As it turns out, sometimes these everyday Americans are adjacent to super-famous Americans like Kanye. On a recently aired episode of the show, an exhibitor married to one of the multi-talented rapper’s cousins offered up a particularly interesting collection for appraisal: Kanye’s high school art portfolio.

“My husband is Kanye West’s first cousin,”
explained the exhibitor. "When Kanye’s mother passed away in 2007, my husband received them as part of the estate about a year after she passed."The artwork captured the attention of the show’s appraiser, Laura Woolley, who said: “I think what really attracted me to these pieces is that a lot of people are probably not aware of how talented he is as an artist outside of his music career. I think these pieces demonstrate an extraordinary facility as an artist.” Woolley priced the pieces individually. The largest one, she said, could go for up to $8,000 while some of the smaller pieces could be worth between $2,000 and $7,000. Altogether, the portfolio might be worth as much as $23,000. Not bad for a highschooler who was pricing his work at around $10 back when he was making it.