The real story behind Kanye West’s ‘Family Business’
‘Family Business,’ lifted from his debut album The College Dropout, is one of Kanye West’s more touching songs, dealing with, as the title suggests, the trials and tribulations of family life.
The song has a nostalgic feel, with both the ups and downs of family life incorporated into its narrative. There are recollections of fights during the holidays, and also of sharing baths with cousins as babies. Both the positives and the negatives are captured by the song.
‘Family Business’ is resonant because of its honesty in dealing with the subject of family. But, as it happens, the family at the heart of the song isn’t Ye’s at all. It’s the family of one of his collaborators, Tarrey Torae, who can also be heard singing on the song.
Towards the end of ‘Family Business,’ we can hear a female vocalist sing, “They don’t mean a thang.” That’s Torae, but her part in the song runs far deeper than that. The tale that Kanye tells throughout was largely inspired by her and her massive family’s experiences.
Torae once spoke to Complex about her role in the song, revealing that Ye specifically reached out to her for help with it. Given that she has an astoundingly high number of cousins, she is something of an authority on family dynamics.
“Kanye was like, ‘I need this to be about real-life family,’” she said. “I’m the oldest of 48 grandkids on my mom’s side and I’m in the middle of 36 grandkids on my father’s side. So when he said, ‘I need material.’ I was like, ‘I got plenty of material.’”
Some of that “material” that she drew upon made it into the track. The last line, for example, which says, “Let’s get Stevie out of jail,” was a reference to Torae’s godbrother, but the more positive references to childhood baths, sharing beds, and an aunt who wasn’t an especially good cook were all drawn from Torae’s memories.
Given the breadth of Kanye’s discography today, this early track can be somewhat easy to forget about now. But it was a key part of The College Dropout, and it was well-liked by lots of people. It was certified gold in the US, while many critics were also very complimentary of it when it came out.
It was tracks like ‘Family Business’ that helped Kanye to stand out from his contemporaries within the hip-hop scene of the 2000s. The College Dropout resisted the gangsta themes that dominated at the time, focusing on other concerns such as family. This song above all others epitomised his approach.