Yeezus to Jesus
By Romare Ashford
In a recent interview, Kanye West announced his exit from secular music to pursue gospel music through his most recent release, “Jesus is King.” He even denounced himself as a secular artist. Kanye West has shown influence from the gospel in his earlier discography during the “Graduation” era.
With the rollout of his Sunday Service since Coachella, West has been on a journey to find his faith again. He seems to be looking for direction with Jesus. In “Jesus is King,” he captures the feeling of being newly introduced to faith and questioning his past.
Finding faith again, West thematically stays focused on ideas about faith. Throughout the album West questions his past connections and looks to see how his can incorporate faith into future decision making. In the album, West can come off as only hitting the surface with his content because of the new understanding of faith. Despite being an innovator in hip hop music, Kanye doesn't dramatically push gospel music in a groundbreaking way. The album comes off as Christian rap at best.
The album starts strong with traditional gospel style music in “Every Hour” and “Selah.” Kanye mixes hip hop and gospel well in this album but plays it safe, not pushing any boundaries. Both songs frame the soundscape for the album well.
From this point on, Kanye dabbles in gospel tropes and Christain imagery. We get half baked ideas about how Christians should act, Chick-fil-a, negatives of social media, and living for Christ. However, Kanye does take responsibility or at least question the egotistical and envious decisions from his past.
At his best musically, Kanye makes good hip hop influenced by gospel music with songs like “Selah,” “Follow God,” “Every Hour,” and “Use This Gospel.” These stronger points in the album have the best harmony with lyrics, production, and contributions from features.
My personal favorite track is “Use This Gospel” with Kenny J and the Clipse (Pusha T and No Malice). This track feels like a remnant of 808s Kanye. The production is pretty stripped back with keys and autotuned hums with added choir vocals. Both verses from Clipse members make for strong lyrical content about the dark past that goes together with themes of forgiveness presented earlier in the album. The track concludes with a sax solo that brings the whole song together.
If Kanye continues to be a gospel musician, the audience will soon want more thought-provoking ideas about faith. I think Kanye’s problem with this album was not getting input from other contemporaries in this genre. Artist veterans in this type of content like Chance, Lecrae, or Andy Mineo could have pushed some new ideas into this album.