Kanye West Dives Into Holy Water, But Do You Forgive Him?
At the end of May 2013, Kobe Bryant posted a pic of himself on Instagram walking on an Alter G treadmill, a contraption created so that those using it can exercise on only a percentage of their body weight. The hoop superstar for the Los Angeles Lakers ruptured his Achilles tendon weeks before in the waning moments of game.
It’s a terribly sterile image, Bryant belted into the massive machine in a dim room—nowhere close to as dynamic as the hundreds of pictures out there of him contorting and extending himself to fly over opponents for dunks or as momentous as photos of him holding one of the five Larry O’Brien championship trophies he led teams to. But when I saw it on my IG timeline, I remember being incredibly happy for him, proud even.
“He’s walking!” I thought. Of course, I knew he’d walk again, that he’d play ball again. But after seeing him hurt himself so badly on live TV, as a fan I was overjoyed just to see him even accomplish the most basic of motions. It’s through that lens that I think about Kanye West’s new album Jesus is King.
2016 was a bad year for West. He dropped The Life of Pablo, a frankly underwhelming album. To the bewilderment and disappointment of many, he backed incumbent President Donald Trump. His wife Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in Paris. And he wrapped the year by canceling the remaining 21 scheduled dates of his Saint Pablo tour, then checked into a hospital. It was later revealed that Kanye was wrestling with mental health issues that possibly informed his erratic behavior (even for his already lofty standards) during a stretch that has since seen him say ridiculous things on TMZ, wear MAGA hats, and produce haphazard albums like 2018’s Ye, which at times featured mumbles and warbles in place of actual lyrics.
As a massive Kanye West fan, I’ve spent most of the last three years cringing. My wife and I saw him perform at The Forum in Los Angeles just days before he wrapped the Pablo tour. He looked tired and uninspired. But if you would have told me he’d do all the junk he’d eventually do, my jaw would have dropped to my boots.
TLOP and Ye can be best described as art projects representing the scattered thoughts of their creator. There’s flashes of greatness, but also letdowns. I’ll never allow myself to love “Father Stretch My Hands,” which begins with arguably one of West’s best beats, but lyrically opens on the heels of a soaring choir’s vocals with talk of staining his t-shirt after having anal sex with a model’s recently bleached anus.
One of the things I loved most about Kanye was his commitment to creating the best product. Aside from Ye and TLOP, his catalog of nine solo albums essentially is flawless. Each offering boasts and showcases sonic growth, diversity, and innovation. All this is to say that coming off of Ye, my expectations were low. It seemed as if I was watching someone passed their prime still trying—and stumbling.
My first few smiles (which came often) from Jesus is King, a 27-minute record, came from genuinely being giddy that he was merely fulfilling my basic needs of a piece of music; I like coherent lyrics that string together to create fully fleshed-out songs. “Oh, wow!” I said in my head. “Kanye sounds clear-headed and healthy!” I like great songs. But even more, I like a collection of songs that Voltron into a cohesive album. “Whoa!” I said aloud as I blasted King in my kitchen. “The whole thing is on-theme.” Making an album about God provides a framework that demands focus, I suppose. I quickly had to recalibrate and ask myself: Is this really a stellar album or am I hearing the musical equivalent of seeing Kobe on the Alter G?
The answer came to me on my second listen of JIK; It’s both. If Kanye’s MTV stage crash a decade ago hurt his likability in the pop world, the MAGA years nearly crushed it among his Black core audience—so much so that it seems the only one he could truly turn to for support is God. Fittingly, Jesus is King is a legitimate gospel album where his commitment to excellence apparently has returned. Gone is the married man who egregiously rhymed of infidelity and bleached privates. Instead, on “Closed on Sunday,” he asks his wife to gather his family for prayer.
On “On God” West credits Jesus for giving him favor after he accepted him as his lord and savior. It surprises me to say this, but though JIK is clearly a gospel record that cites scripture, it doesn’t feel heavy-handed in its presentation. At times the beats sport bounces that one might think were meant to shake up nightclubs, but instead Trojan horse messages of worship and defeating inner demons. And listeners still get a big dosage of the old Kanye. On that same track, he says “I've been tellin' y'all since ’05/ [I’m] the greatest artist restin' or alive.” He also mentions his luxury cars, his recent Forbes cover, and Chicago drill rapper Chief Keef.
The tricky and neat thing about this being a Christian (the religion most African Americans subscribe to) gospel album is that as he sings the Lord’s praises, he also challenges his Black fans to practice forgiveness—a Christian pillar—towards him without actually asking them for it. “Told people God was my mission,” he raps on “Hands On.” “What have you been hearing from the Christians?/ They’ll be the first one to judge me/ Make it feel like nobody loves me.” The subliminal thought there is, If you’re a Christian Black person hearing this, don’t be a hypocrite; Show me love. The ask is big, but the idea is biblically comprehensible.
While Kanye has repented and given himself to the Lord, he doesn’t apologize to those who have followed him. I suppose it would be nice to get a musical “I’m sorry” from him. Though I don’t much care to get one. I’m just happy to see him back on track. I’m not going to front like I’m not a little skeptical, but I’m going to give him an opportunity to let me down again.
I believe that most Black fans who “canceled” Kanye in the wave of his MAGA antics and iffy albums are doing so out of fear that they’ll be fooled again. But when I look at what he’s endured over the course of the last few years (he was diagnosed as bi-polar and describes recent years as ones spent in the dark on JIK), I can’t hold on to my grudge.
With all that in mind, I don’t think anything Kanye did is unforgivable. And though it’s an extreme dive, I also believe that his leap into gospel is pure. Anyone who’s really been listening knows that he’s been talking about God and religion in his music since his career in the spotlight began.
He placed Jesus’ mother Mary in a modern-day club on 2016’s “Wolves,” challenged pop radio heads to play a song about Him on “Jesus Walks” in 2004, told us about his convo with the man upstairs on 2013s “I Am a God.” and grappled with the restraints of Christ-like living on 2011’s “No Church in the Wild.”
It all brings us to today, where he’s been leading a church-like experience called Sunday Service, remixing secular music and sprinkling gospel on it. Jesus is King just cemented what side he’s on. When choir voices almost literally climb on top of each other to spread the glory on JIK opener “Every Hour,” how can you not be lifted out of your crummy feelings towards the man who produced it? Gospel music at its best—maybe more-so than any other genre—is electrifying and healing.
“The devil had my soul,” he says on “On God. “I can’t lie.” In a Big Boy interview, West says that some of the hit songs he’s had recently, specifically citing “I Love It” and it’s trash “You're such a fuckin' ho/ I love it” hook probably made the devil happy. It’s a fair assumption.
Even if Kanye does slide back into secular music after going full Disciple Mode, I won’t look at this phase of his life and career as one where he duped me with some faux Lord love. We all can probably recall one time where we drank too much alcohol, suffered through a nasty hangover, and told ourselves and friends that we’re never drinking again. In time that statement proves not to be true. More likely is that from then on, you’re wiser in your decisions, knowing that you not only run the risk of hurting yourself, but others in your path as well.
Maybe JIK is Kanye aggressively pounding his reset button and cleansing himself—a baptism of sorts to return to a more centered place internally. I wouldn’t be mad at that. West planning to transform his old hits into church-friendly versions for his upcoming tour honestly makes me feel a bit icky, like when I play Kidz Bops songs for my daughter and ache to turn on the R-rated originals instead.
Time will tell. But those quickly passing Kanye’s efforts to become a better Christian off as disingenuous would probably benefit from a few splashes of God’s water, too. Hating is unbecoming, definitely not Christ-like.