Jesus Is King Album Review
Kanye Makes a Call to Spirituality
On Friday, October 25th 2019 at 12:00 PM EST we were graced with Kanye West’s 9th studio album, Jesus Is King. The album follows the 2018 release of ‘Ye’ and ‘Kids See Ghosts’.
Jesus Is King breaks away from the trend of West using his projects as a means of communicating greater context as to what his social media antics mean. It finds itself on the tail end of loud Trump support, a Drake beef that seemed to involve a lot of misunderstandings and Kanye coming out about his battles with bipolar disorder.
In terms of sound, West has made very few risky decisions on the project. Musically, the album sounds like a Kanye West album — poor singing that’s been blatantly autotuned to sound robotic, powerful organs, soul samples and a Ty Dolla $ign feature. There are a lot of moments on this album that sound like they would fit on 808’s and Heartbreak, The College Dropout or any of Kanye’s earlier work. The catch is the addition of a choir, much heavier gospel inspiration and even cornier rapping (‘closed on Sunday, you my Chikfil-A’, we’re deep into dad rap territory).
On Jesus Is King, West makes the full transition to gospel artist. Kanye has never shied away from his faith, releasing songs such as ‘Jesus Walks’, ‘Never Let Me Down’ and ‘Ultralight Beam’. We can attribute this to transition in his music to Kanye’s recent full-on commitment to his faith. He’s been quoted as saying he almost quit rap as he considered it the ‘devil’s music’. Kanye’s solidified faith is apparent throughout the whole project.
The content matter of Jesus Is King may make or break your ability to enjoy the project for what it is. The album is filled with bible references and calls to praise the Judeo-Christian God. This is all to be expected with his new venture into gospel music, but it is by far the most aggressively Christian album released by Kanye Omari West. At times the project seems preachy and that’s because its goal is to preach the gospel to you. The album is sonically comforting for Kanye fans, but the subject matter may alienate a lot of his fanbase.
Jesus Is King does something a lot of us don’t want to do, and that is question our spirituality. I think the album serves as a springboard for the greater question of what does religion do for us. Kanye speaks about God and Jesus in a very Kanye-Esque manner — Kanye’s relationship with God and his faith can be explained as gratitude for all of the material possessions and wealth he’s been able to accumulate. He references his frustrations with the IRS for taking 50% of his income while simultaneously praising God for putting him in this position.
The album speaks to Kanye’s nuanced relationship with God and his faith, but I think that’s where I find the beauty in the work where others see its shortcomings. I think that Kanye West was the best possible person to make a gospel album for this generation — a man that has committed blasphemy and made a jackass out of himself in front of the world numerous times. I think that he is the artist that will successfully make Christian rap, sort of, kind of … cool?
Speaking to the fact that the album is about Kanye’s unique relationship with his faith, it’s up to debate how much of a ‘gospel’ album it is. It includes stand out tracks like ‘Every Hour’ and ‘Jesus Is Lord’ that take you 100% into the realm of gospel music, but the rest of the album seems to only have one foot in the genre. Kanye goes as far as quoting the book of John using it as a defence for his very polarizing comments on slavery. He calls to a part of the bible where Jesus refers to those who commit sins as a slave of sin.
They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the [slave] of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
Kanye uses the album almost like the end to a redemption arc that started with ‘Ye’ and reached its peak with ‘Kids See Ghosts’. It picks up where ‘The Life of Pablo’ did and completes the introduction to Kanye the Christian, it gives us a peek into the psyche and spirituality of arguably the most volatile man in hip-hop at the moment.
The album is beautifully composed, the production is great and Kanye can put together a song well enough to excuse his shitty rapping (I should preface this by saying that I do not think Kanye West has ever been a technically sound rapper), the subject matter is just controversial enough. It is a good piece of work, but I think the religiosity of it will divide the masses. I think that if you go into this expecting it to be about God and just relishing in the sonic architecture that’s been crafted you’ll enjoy the album. If you’re someone such as myself that enjoys the fact that he talks about God and how the album makes you think about God (whether that is questioning your own beliefs or reaffirming what you already know), it’s even better. But this album can lose you if you get too caught up in the neverending spiritual debate that we all find ourselves in.
Jesus Is King pushes young people to an uncomfortable place, in a political landscape where we are pushed towards secularism and religion is associated with bigotry and Christianity with homophobia and hate, it’s hard to make gospel cool — but Kanye tries and in my opinion, he succeeds. The album beautifully blends classic Kanye West soundscapes with gospel themes and influence. Jesus Is King does not push any envelopes in terms of sound, but it is far outside the realm of what we usually expect from Mr West.
7/10
