North West, 13, named Ye’s ‘Homecoming’ her favorite song from 2007’s ‘Graduation,’ even singing the chorus in a new interview
North West, the 13-year-old eldest child of Ye and Kim Kardashian, has named “Homecoming” her favorite song from her father’s 2007 album Graduation. She revealed the pick during a recent interview for Emwell’s “Well Well Well” series, singling out the Chris Martin-featuring track and even singing a piece of its chorus on camera. For a record that keeps compounding commercial value nearly two decades after release, the moment is a small but telling sign of how Graduation is being handed down.
The choice did not come from nowhere. North first recalled dressing as the Graduation-era bear, the Takashi Murakami mascot that became the album’s visual signature, for Halloween in 2023, explaining that she had the idea while listening to the record. That led to the question of a favorite, and she landed on “Homecoming,” the track that casts Ye’s native Chicago as a former lover and pairs his verses with a soaring Coldplay hook. It is a deep cut rather than a radio smash, which makes the pick feel personal rather than obvious.
A Classic That Keeps Earning
Graduation was a commercial landmark when it arrived. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with nearly 957,000 copies sold in its first week, a figure that famously bested 50 Cent’s Curtis in their September 2007 release-date showdown and, by many accounts, helped shift hip-hop’s center of gravity toward a more melodic, pop-facing sound. It went on to win Best Rap Album at the 2008 Grammys and anchored singles including “Stronger,” “Good Life,” and “Homecoming.”
The numbers have not cooled. Graduation surpassed 8 billion streams on Spotify in 2025, evidence that the album functions less like a catalog title and more like a permanent fixture of the streaming economy. In an era when heritage records drive a growing share of consumption, a teenager choosing a 2007 album cut as her favorite song is exactly the kind of organic engagement that keeps those streams, and the royalties attached to them, flowing.
The Next West in the Booth
The reveal also reads differently because North is no longer just a famous daughter with opinions. She has made her own move into music, debuting at Rolling Loud California, teasing a project she has jokingly titled Elementary School Dropout, a nod to her father’s The College Dropout, and releasing material of her own. She has also drawn millions of views for her online videos and short songs, building a following before most artists finish middle school. For someone shaping her earliest public identity, naming “Homecoming” is less celebrity trivia than a window into the influences she is actively metabolizing.
That lineage matters in a market increasingly interested in second-generation artists and the catalogs they inherit. North West has grown up inside one of the most scrutinized musical estates in the world, and her taste, however casually expressed, carries a built-in audience. When she sings a few bars of “Homecoming,” it is both a fan moment and a preview of the reference points a future West release might draw on.
None of this requires overstatement. A 13-year-old naming a favorite song is, on its face, a light moment. But placed against Graduation’s enduring chart and streaming performance, and against North’s own emerging career, it captures something real about how legacy works in 2026. The classics stay alive because the next generation keeps choosing them, and occasionally, that next generation shares a last name with the artist.
