Los Angeles, California - A close friend and collaborator of Kanye West claims the controversial rapper recently shared his plans to retire from the music industry.

On Tuesday, fellow rapper Rich the Kid, who has been featured on several tracks with Ye over the years, shared an Instagram story revealing screenshots from a text conversation the two recently had.

"I am retiring from professional music," Ye wrote. "Not sure what else to do."

His friend responded, telling Ye the people "NEED you," adding that "retiring ain't it."

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West was once one of the biggest stars in music, but he nearly tanked his career after he made a string of public antisemitic comments and exhibited other erratic behavior, which he has attributed to his self-diagnosed bipolar disorder.

This year, he returned to music after a lengthy hiatus by releasing an album with Ty Dolla $ign titled Vultures. He's expected to soon release Vultures 2, but the project has been delayed without explanation several times.

Rich deleted his story about a half hour later, but the internet quickly reproduced them and ran rampant with speculation that hip-hop may soon lose one of its GOATs.

He later appeared to shut down the rumors by sharing a photo of the tracklist for his upcoming album, which West is featured on, along with the caption, "Actually, we dropping Friday."