Kanye West donates $10 million to volcano conservatory

Kanye West has been in a charitable mood of late. He recently donated $500,000 to California wildfire relief and $150,000 to the family of Jemel Roberson, the Chicago security guard mistakenly killed by police late last year. He’s also contributed upwards of $200,000 to the campaign of Chicago mayoral candidate Amara Enyia.

Now, via the Wall Street Journal, comes word that Kanye has donated $10 million to the Turrell Art Foundation. The donation will assist James Turrell in his efforts to transform the inner cone of the Roden Crater in Flagstaff, AZ into a massive naked-eye observatory.

A website for the Roden Crater provides further details:

“Since acquiring the dormant cinder cone in 1977, Turrell has fashioned Roden Crater into a site containing tunnels and apertures that open onto pristine skies, capturing light directly from the sun in daylight hours, and the planets and stars at night. Indeed it is more akin to the communally developed sites of ancient Incas, than to the conceptions of any individual one can think of in modern times.”

In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, West said that he wants the Roden Crater to be “experienced and enjoyed for eternity.”

Kanye himself visited the crater back in December and described the experience as “life changing.”