My Gut Reaction: Kanye West - Jesus Is King (October 25, 2019)

And now, a selection of lyrics from the catalog of Kanye Omari West:

“You got sick thoughts? I got more of ‘em / You got a sister-in-law you’d smash? I got four of ‘em/ Damn, those is your sisters / You did something unholy to them pictures” – “XTCY”

“Now if I fuck this model  / And she just bleached her asshole / And I get bleach on my T-shirt / I’ma feel like an asshole” – “Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1”

“I am a god / Hurry up with my damn massage / Hurry up with my damn ménage / Get the Porsche out the damn garage / I am a god / Even though I’m a man of God / My whole life in the hand of God / So y’all better quit playin’ with God” – “ I Am A God”

“I wanna fuck you hard on the sink / After that, give you something to drink / Step back, can’t get spunk on the mink” – “Bound 2”

“I know I’m preaching to the congregation / We love Jesus but she done learned a lot from Satan... Don’t leave while you’re hot, that’s how Mase screwed up” – “Devil in a Blue Dress”

“I be sniffing Miley Cyrus with Miley Cyrus / In a bathroom with my thumb in her ass / Now I’m actin’ like I’m white” – “Hold Tight”

“Poopy-di-scoop / Scoop-diddy-whoop / Whoop-di-scoop-di-poop” – “Lift Yourself”

“When I grab your neck, I touch your soul” – “Say You Will”

“Make her knees shake, make a priest faint, uh / Make a nun cum, make her cream-ate, uh” – “Hell of a Life”

“So here go my single, dog, radio needs this / They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus / That means guns, sex, lies, videotape / But if I talk about God my record won’t get played?” – “Jesus Walks”

That last one is important, as it is the foundation of today’s subject, Kanye West’s ninth solo album Jesus Is King. This project’s existence is a bit of a cosmic joke, as it seems to be the culmination of a bet Kanye made against himself back when “Jesus Walks” was originally released. “Here go my album, dog, humanity needs this,” he may as well have said.

Do we, though?

Jesus Is King rose from the ashes of what was once Yandhi, a project scheduled for 2018 that followed in the same footsteps as Ye’s 2013 release Yeezus, once again placing himself alongside a deity of his choosing. The story goes that Kanye became a born-again Christian and felt that the songs recorded for Yandhi didn’t reflect how he felt about his faith, our chosen genre, and life in general, but the reality is that some of the tracks here are simply retooled versions of Yandhi tracks, except replacing the word “fuck” with “Jesus” or something. (Bonus points if you know what I’m referencing there.)

West and his new merry band of soulmates, calling themselves Sunday Service, began touring the country in January of this year, performing renditions of rap and R&B songs reworked as gospel screeds as though that had never been done before in the history of recorded music. (*cough* Kirk Franklin *cough*) As this is still Kanye West we’re talking about, he immediately drew crowds and acclaim, as the man never does anything quietly. Soon, to hear the Interweb tell it, it was as though his eighth solo album, the execrable ye, never even existed, since West distanced himself from his past efforts as a way to proclaim his devotion to Christ.

This put his label home, Def Jam Records, in a tough spot, as they were now being forced to market a gospel rap record to the masses. I’m just kidding – Def Jam doesn’t give a shit as long as Ye continues to make them money, and since every goddamn thing the man does is followed breathlessly by both the press and his huge fanbase, they must be loving the free publicity right now. Until the time comes where his antics (Jesus Is King; his mishandling of his own mental illness by referring to it as a "superpower" that he then fails to treat; his “slavery is a choice” comments that still haven’t been forgiven; oh, and who could forget his embracing of Trump and the infamous MAGA hat) result in lower sales numbers, Ye can essentially do as he pleases. As such, Jesus Is King is being accompanied by a tour and an IMAX film of the same name, because Yeezy never misses a mark.

Somewhere, Jay-Z is breathing a huge sigh of relief, emboldened by the fact that he no longer has to put up with Kanye West's dumb ass.

Jesus Is King isn’t the first time a major label rapper turned to Jesus at a major point in his career: one could say the same of Mase, No Malice (of the Virginia coke-rap duo Clipse), or even Craig Mack (just kidding, that guy was nowhere near his peak when he switched). But it certainly marks the first time that said rapper that turned to Jesus chose to make it a whole thing, with live shows, merchandising, and the whole nine accompanying the Jesus Is King press run. But the mere fact that the man even had to do press for this project is telling, because this is still Kanye fucking West we’re talking about: we know what to expect from the man. We know. But his new fans (you know, the ones with the matching red hats) don’t know what the man is all about outside of what the mainstream media reports. So he had to win them over. One way of doing this, it seems, was to eschew most of his old friends and collaborators (including professional EGOT John Legend, one of his more vocal opponents regarding his praising of the orange fuckwad): only a handful of G.O.O.D. Music acts (both past and present) put in any work on here, which is telling.

Based on how Twitter looks, he succeeded. I mean, Donald Trump Jr. isn’t praising my blog, but he is boosting Jesus Is King. So.

Get a snack – we're going long tonight.

1. EVERY HOUR (FEAT. SUNDAY SERVICE)

Functions as an album intro, with Sunday Service letting the listener know exactly what they’re getting into, content-wise, while Ye stays out of the booth. The most fascinating aspect of “Every Hour” is found in the production credits, as this track was administered by West, Frederico Vindver, and Budgie, who may be best known in the hip hop underground as the producer who has released The Good Book and The Good Book Vol. 2 alongside The Alchemist, his work skewing toward more religious themes and samples, so at least his participation here is entirely on-brand. The least fascinating aspect of “Every Hour”, though, is “Every Hour”, which is just as useless as your typical rap album intro gets.

2. SELAH

Light organ wailing comingles with harder drums to create “Selah”, which, musically, could have been an outtake from Yeezus had it not been for, you know, the subject matter. (The beat comes from Ye and one-half of the duo Ratatat, so there are some bonafides here.) Our host delivers his simplistic verses (his later work has never exactly qualified as “complex lyricism”, mind you), and a ridiculous, shout-y, faux-cathartic outro, while the Sunday Service unleashes a “Hallelujah” bridge because that’s the point of this exercise. “Selah” is the song where Kanye references Yandhi by blaming Jesus Christ for it never being released (that’s an interpretation, anyway), while justifying being a complete asshole to chauffeurs, screaming at them because “[he] ain’t mean, [he’s] just focused”, which definitely sounds like a certain type of Christian. The song itself could be worse, but there’s little replay value to be found here. As a critic and writer, though, here’s my concern: how in the hell did it take a minimum of five separate rappers (per the credits, CyHi da Prynce, what remains of the Re-Up Gang (Pusha T, No Malice, and Ab-Liva), and Consequence) to come up with lines for Kanye to recite such as, “If you woke, then wake up”? I demand answers, people.

3. FOLLOW GOD

The sample that opens “Follow God” will likely remind listeners of The Life of Pablo’s “Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1”, best known as the song with the infamous “bleached asshole” like that kills the entire fucking song dead in its tracks. But “Follow God” isn’t a sequel, spiritual or otherwise, to that past horseshit (and besides, the actual sequel appeared immediately after the original on The Life of Pablo): instead, it’s a gospel soul-inflected runner (provided by Ye, Xcelence, and BoogzDaBeast) with some faster-paced bars from our host that could have come from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (okay, the flow, not the words) that just so happen to mention Christ a bunch of times. (I got a bit of a “Hell of a Night” vibe from the delivery, personally, but I’m sure the theme of “falling in love with a porn star” wasn’t on our host’s mind when he recorded this track.) It’s not great or even all that good, but of the three tracks presented on Jesus Is King thus far, “Follow God” is by far the best of them, and not just because of West’s quick Beanie Sigel reference that, for a brief moment, reminded me of the old Kanye. Still, though, this doesn’t completely work.

4. CLOSED ON SUNDAY

Ah yes, the Chick Fil-A song Twitter alerted me to, and it is terrible. Just fucking terrible. Putting aside how garbage Chick Fil-A’s beliefs actually are (they have great food, but there’s no goddamn way I’ll ever want any of my money to go toward bullshit such as anti-LGBTQ initiatives and funding motherfucking conversion therapy), having Kanye West dedicate an entire chorus to the popular chain smacks of pandering to his new core base: religious-only-when-it-benefits-them MAGA asshats who hide behind a fucking book to espouse exclusionary beliefs and hatred. Fuck that shit. It certainly helps me (and you two) that “Closed on Sunday” sucks: the beat, which was sent through an assembly line that somehow features Timbaland (who, based on the sheer number of credits he receives on Jesus Is King, appears to be in the “fuck it, my career peaked a long time ago, I had a good run, who even cares anymore what I do” portion of his lifespan), wants to be both quiet and loud, failing at both, and Ye’s sung vocals (co-written by the brothers Clipse Thornton), while at least technically better than the malfunctioning Siri analogue he portrayed on 808’s & Heartbreak, are disingenuous. I don’t believe his faith in his faith, not one iota. One doesn’t say, “My life is His, I’m no longer my own,” while still giving interviews claiming to be the greatest artist of all time. Just. Doesn’t. Happen. I believe your own goddamn God wouldn’t be too happy with you pulling that shit, Ye. Besides, becoming the Joel Osteen of rap (or even the Jesse Gemstone) isn’t something to aspire to.

5. ON GOD

One huge component Jesus Is King is lacking is sincerity on the part of our host: Kanye West can believe in whatever sky cake he wants, but if he wishes for the listener to follow him on his journey, he needs to do better than the busybody middle-management faux-deity he clearly wants to become during “On God”, a truly shitty West, BoogzDaBeast, and Cerda production that substitutes creativity with sheer volume. This middling gospel-trap creation is topped with boasts-n-bullshit from a man who, yes, has suffered through some profound losses in his lifetime, at least one of which he still hasn’t recovered from (you two know what I’m talking about there), and has proven himself to be oddly resilient in the face of adversity, but he’s nowhere near humble enough to seemingly allow Jesus to ever take the wheel: “I’ve been telling y’all since ’05 / The greatest artist restin’ or alive” is a fine brag for a rapper, but a Christian rapper is supposed to not put anyone above His faith, including their own goddamn selves. Also, Ye mildly takes his Lord’s name in vain by way of quoting Busta Rhymes, which was strange. The only thing about “On God” that I even remotely enjoyed is found at the very very end, where our host gives listeners a callback, reusing the same Yung Bizzle “Lambo” vocal sample he famously used on “Mercy”, a premarital sex-fueled rap that you two must enjoy more than Jesus Is King so far, yes?

6. EVERYTHING WE NEED (FEAT. TY DOLLA SIGN & ANT CLEMONS)

Somehow these tracks on Jesus Is King qualify to be classified as “songs” even though many of them run fairly short (the entire album isn’t even a full half-hour) and feature a Kanye West who quickly abandons ideas as soon as he grows weary of them. “Everything We Need” is certainly one of those: mostly consisting of crooning (provided by guests Ty Dolla Sign and Ant Clemons, who basically say the exact same shit so why keep both of them?) and an ineffective West, Ronny J, and FNZ piano-loop instrumental, Yeezy delivers two “verses” that… well, a generous reading would be that he plays with the simplicity of the English language, whereas Max the critic would just say that he sounds like a fucking amateur. “Go ‘head, level up yourself / This that different latitude.” This isn’t why you hired writers, Kanye. This isn’t it, bro. And as though he were apologizing for deleting a verse from deceased (alleged) pregnant girlfriend-abuser and also, apparently, rapper XXXTENTATION from the original version of “Everything We Need” (titled “The Storm” and originally intended for whatever Yandhi was supposed to become), Ye dances around some misogyny his damn self, blaming Eve for all of the problems in the world (as a lot of Christians may) while claiming that everything would have been much better had Adam just said, “Baby, let’s put this [apple] back on the tree.” Glad to see that Kanye West is still fundamentally the same dude who blames women for all of his issues underneath his vestments.

7. WATER (FEAT. ANT CLEMONS)

More of a Clemons showcase than a proper Kanye West song, but our host fails his invited guest regardless: Ant’s vocals sound too flat and lifeless for a track ostensibly about the power of Christ compelling you giving us all life. Ye deadpans his rapped verse hilariously, but he isn’t trying to be funny, unless, “Jesus, give us wealth” is supposed to be a joke, which, as delivered, it most certainly is not. (If he really did get that tax credit he’s been bragging about recently, though, it must have worked for him. So does Kanye West treat the teachings of Jesus Christ as The Secret? Discuss.) That cognitive dissonance underscores how little Yeezy truly believes in this stuff, at least as far as my ears are concerned. The instrumental is seemingly nonexistent until the outro, where our host sort-of sings the same vocals he did during the intro, none of which feature any interpretation of the concept of “Water” (Clemons has him beat there) but he does say the actual word more than once, so that counts, right?

8. GOD IS

Embodies the problem I have with Kanye West’s current persona. No, I’m not about to get upset at his sounding preachy-as-shit while preaching on a Christian rap album – that would be silly (although he is a bit heavy-handed with it, in that, “Hey, I just discovered Christ, have you heard of him before? Here’s a bunch of facts I learned about Christ!”-kind of way that dudes (it’s always dudes) who become obsessed with their new hobbies tend to do). And no, I don’t care that Kanye lightly curses on “God Is.” (He only says “damn”, so calm down, Max, but this isn’t like fellow Christian rapper No Malice’s occasional slips on his own solo projects. This version of Kanye West is entirely manufactured and polished, and given our host’s perfectionist tendencies, it seems like he left the word in there in a failed effort to appeal to his fanbase by acting as a man who is still working on himself and his relationship with Christ, and I’m not buying any of that shit.)

What bothers me about “God Is” (and Kanye West currently) is that he’s trying to have it both ways: honoring his God and his beliefs while still living like the money- and clout-chasing superstar he’s been for a while now. This plays as though his well-documented mental problems are now manifesting themselves as a likely-passing interest in spirituality, which is wholly offensive to actual human beings who hold these beliefs to be true. “From the rich to the poor, all are welcome through the door,” he says at one point. If you had actually read the Bible, Ye, you’d realize that’s not what it fucking says: Matthew 19:23-24 reads, “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven… it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” That same passage features Christ telling a wealthy man, “… if you want to be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven.” While Ye does dress now like he shops exclusively in back alley dumpsters and is sort-of helping with prison reform in this country (although his wife is really doing the brunt of that work, mostly whenever paparazzi is around), I don’t see Kanye West humbling himself to that effect, and as such, this entire segment of his career is insincere, an aloof, sarcastic attempt at courting the new “fans” he picked up when he threw on a MAGA hat, embraced Trump, and sold out his race in the process.

I don’t even need to talk about the instrumental, which rides a James Cleveland sample throughout, or our host’s sung vocals, which are so raspy that you feel like his throat may shatter mid-song and you kind of wish that it did, a little. I also don’t need to tell you about how he thinks he’s being slick by plugging his Sunday Service weekly functions during the track.

All you need is this TL:DR – fuck this song.

Sure, I never thought I’d ever write that about a song called “God Is”, but this phony disingenuous charlatan Kanye West, cruelly traversing the world with his Sunday Service cult like fucking P.T. Barnum (I mean, this bitch-ass con artist actually tried to trademark the phrase “Sunday service” and immediately started pushing merch bearing the phrase when he began doing these bullshit “sermons”), has certainly earned it. And if he is truly reborn, well, he’s doing a fucking shitty job proving it to anyone.

Fuck.

9. HANDS ON (FEAT. FRED HAMMOND)

I have a confession to make (which is appropriate, given the religious bent of today’s post, I guess): I wrote this review in two parts, with “God Is” marking the point where I picked it back up. So if you two noticed a not-so-slight change in tone, there’s why. There is no grand design here: I just couldn’t write all of this in one sitting, as I had other shit to do in real life. But that paragraph-plus for “God Is” kind of got away from me, both in how upset it made me even though I don’t even really follow any of this like that (I’m more “I’m not a fan of hypocrites”, for all intents and purposes) and in how truly fucking awful it played in execution, even though I’ll likely be in the minority (not on this blog or with many critics, but, you know… *gestures toward Twitter*). So “Hands On” is Ye’s rebuttal of the anticipated blowback, wherein he recruits assistance from gospel legend Fred Hammond to snipe (more passive-aggressively than usual, interestingly) at critics and Christians who find his leaning-in to his faith to be more of a marketing ploy than any true stance on his beliefs.

The minimalist instrumental, provided by West, Vindver, Timbaland, and Timbo’s assistant Angel Lopez, is Yeezus-adjacent with some Dark Fantasy undertones, but not nearly as good as the latter. (About on par with the former, though.) “If they only see the wrongs, never listen to the songs,” Ye raps during his single verse in an attempt to explain to everybody that he totally gets why people would side-eye this late-career shift, urging them to give him a chance. Dude, it’s not the religious stuff that’s on trial here (at least not for me: I don’t give a shit what he believes in): it’s how you’re selling out your culture in a manner wholly ignorant to the pain and suffering that you yourself are inflicting due to your affiliations, political and otherwise (*cough* Kardashians *cough*). It’s difficult to compartmentalize this horseshit and just focus on the musical output when you insist on throwing it in our faces all the time, Kanye. Anyway, “Hands On” isn’t terrible, but like a lot of Jesus Is King, after you listen to it the once, you get the idea and never need to revisit it. And why exactly was Young Thug chopped from the final product save for a single bar that still remains toward the end? What was that about?

10. USE THIS GOSPEL (FEAT. CLIPSE & KENNY G)

Under different circumstances, a reunion of G.O.O.D. Music president Pusha T and his older brother, No Malice, would be a hotly anticipated event, but given that it happens to take place on Jesus Is King, I’m hesitant. Not that the reborn No Malice would be out of place on a Christian rap record such as this: hell, Pusha-Ton is really the odd man out here. And I say that even though it’s the older Thornton that throws an allusion to his coke-rap past into his performance and not Push. But “Use This Gospel” sucks. It’s awful. It’s goddamn terrible. The beat, drafted by committee, is weak as shit, and Kanye’s crooning of the hook (his only vocal contribution here) gives off megachurch televangelist energy in its ham-fisted manner. Neither brother raps decently enough here: while No Malice at least has his faith to fall back on (if not the most compelling line delivery), Pusha T manages to sound faker than our host with his opening line, “How could He not be the greatest?”, which certainly doesn’t help. No Malice’s two post-Clipse solo albums approach this exact same territory in a far better fashion, so if you’re still reading this review, just know that you should seek those projects out instead.

This track, formerly titled “Use This Gospel For Protection” according to early tracklistings (was Kanye afraid that the longer name evoked violent content that doesn’t actually exist on here?), is punctuated with your father’s favorite saxophone player  Kenny G performing his own version of the instrumental immediately following No Mal’s verse, the transition nonexistent and whiplash-inducing, not to mention absurdly nonsensical. Kenny G appear on here simply because this is a Kanye West song and that’s it, kind of like how Elton John popped up out of nowhere at the end of “All of The Lights”. I’d say this song was a disappointment, but that word implies that I had assigned some level of expectation to it. It was nice to hear these guys together again, but if this is the only way we ever get to hear it, I think they should be kept far apart, through legal means if necessary, because they both fucking blew on here.

Fun fact: Puff Daddy’s former valet Fonzworth Bentley receives a writing credit on here under his real name, Derek Watkins, and I have no idea why, given that the lyrical content wasn’t exactly “complex” enough to warrant as many writers as it employed, unless everyone got to take a crack at their own syllable. I get that one of Ye’s better attributes has always been to give every single person who contributed an idea credit, but god damn.

11. JESUS IS LORD

Basically the outro. At least Jesus Is King was short?

THE LAST WORD: We have a new worst Kanye West album, you two! Huzzah! Cue the streamers! *high-fives everyone, gives interview out of breath* Oh man, I really didn’t think he could pull it off after whatever the fuck ye was supposed to be, and Yeezus was also so terrible, but man, he did it! He fucking did it! Whoo! *gets hit in the face with a champagne cork*

Jesus Is King is garbage. As Christian music, as rap music, as music, garbage. This is a Christian rap album merely because Kanye uses the words “Jesus” and “God” a whole bunch of times, something he had already been doing throughout his career, mind you. But Jesus Is King plays as lip service to the religious crowd from a false idol. At no point did I ever believe that West has devoted his life to his faith: one could swap out a few words here and Jesus Is King would sound pretty much like Yeezus (an album that, remember, features a song entitled “I Am A God”). It sounds like it could have been satirical had Ye known what that word actually meant: following the blueprint of a Christian album isn’t enough, we have to feel your faith, and none of that is present here. There isn’t a single moment where I bought Ye’s smoke-and-mirrors: shit, whenever DMX records one of his “Prayer” interludes, I feel his pain much more than anything presented here. (See also: DMX’s duet with Patti Labelle, “Thank You”, which blows this entire fucking album out of the water with Earl’s legitimate faith and palpable passion.)

Perhaps I should look at this as just a rap album and not the fucking circus it truly is. So, about the music: most of it is terrible. Some of it does sound fine: Kanye West is a gifted producer and has an ear for sounds that the rest of us don’t even realize we haven’t ever heard, so some of the beats on Jesus Is King work pretty well. The way that West utilizes some gospel records as though they were the R&B and soul songs he mined for samples back in the day was interesting, but it plays like a challenge he imposed upon himself to limit his source material, not unlike DJ Premier using only Adrian Younge or Antman Wonder records to sample from for PRhyme and PRhyme 2, respectively, or The Alchemist only using Russian music to form the basis of his Russian Roulette. The other producers thrown into the mix do very little to distinguish themselves from the pack, as though the end goal were for them to all sound exactly like Kanye, which is a mistake. Most egregious of these inclusions is Timbaland, a guy who has an honest claim at having been the best producer in the game at one point in his career, having altered the soundscape at least three times: to hear him attach his name to minimalist beats such as these seems like a goddamn waste of Def Jam’s money. (Unless that was the point.)

Lyrically, Jesus Is King is crap. Again, not because of the religious stuff: it’s because he doesn’t believe in the religious stuff. I have no doubt that he’ll revert back to his original form at some point, as that was the guy that his fanbase fell for in the first place. Still, there are traces of the artist formerly known as Kanye West to be found within this project’s DNA: there are a few jokes and references that prove he hasn’t fully been absorbed into the sunken place, and, of course, the misogyny his songs are known for pops up periodically, except this time they’re co-signed by the Bible, which, you know, treats women extraordinarily well. The few guests that appear also fare badly: the vocalists all cancel out one another (sorry that this isn’t really a stepping stone in your career, Ant Clemons), and that Clipse reunion? Fuck, man, that was atrocious. It’s so bad that it may have you questioning whether or not Lord Willin’ or Hell Hath No Fury (hey, more religious-themed titles!) were even any good to begin with, or if we were all just enamored with Pharrell and Chad’s beats at the time.

It’s too late for me to write “In short…”, but Jesus Is King is a blatant attempt at a cash grab, where Kanye West hopes that his new MAGA fanbase snatches up his new album in order for him to keep his lavish lifestyle going. You know, the lifestyle he has made zero effort to downgrade even after accepting Jesus Christ as his lord, savior, and black AmEx. But if this were just Ye, it would be easy to ignore it. What makes this so much worse is how the religious crowd is currently eating it up, having no clue about just how problematic, disingenuous, and self-serving their false idol actually is. Jesus Is King isn’t just bad, it’s bad for society. But that doesn’t matter to Def Jam Records or Kanye West, both of whom are laughing all the way to the bank.

-Max

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