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Donda West, the 58-year-old mother of rapper Kanye, died on Saturday evening in Los Angeles.

Understandably, there has been no word yet from Kanye on his mother’s passing, which her publicist told CNN followed a “cosmetic procedure”.

The bond between mother and son was strong, it seemed; the pair appearing together often in public at industry bashes and live shows.

A respected academic who held a prominent position within Chicago State University’s English department, Donda West recently inked Raising Kanye: Life Lessons from the Mother of a Hip-Hop Star in which she compared her son to, among others, Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi.

A representative at Island Def Jam, West’s label, has passed on the message that "the family respectfully asks for privacy during this time of grief."