Kanye West has launched his online shop where you can purchase very mediocrely-designed sweatshirts with matching pants for a mere $390 for the set
Kanye West shocked the world last month when he announced he had become a 'born again Christian' and was preparing to drop a new album entitled '
Jesus Is King'. No sooner had that happened when he again shocked the world by
announcing a new-found friendship with motivational speaker and false bible teacher Joel Osteen.
"The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock." 1 Peter 5:1-3 (KJV)
"Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see." Revelation 3:17,18 (KJV)
So this confirms my initial suspicions that the whole '
Jesus Is King' and Sunday Service Experience is just another Kanye West "joint" designed to promote himself by any means possible. And in a very predictable move, you can look forward to the
'Jesus Is Born' Christmas album dropping in December. No, I'm not kidding but I wish I was. Here is a review of his current album, which I trust you will find most insightful.
The Cash-Is-King Sermons of Kanye West
FROM THE RINGER: In 2015, Atlanta-based minister Creflo Dollar decided to put his faith in God, and in the generosity of his sizable following, and purchase a $65 million jet. The jet,
Dollar said, would allow him to “safely and swiftly share the good news of the gospel worldwide.” It’d be a Gulfstream G650—the most expensive Gulfstream—reflecting the sterling standard of blessing you could hope to receive at Dollar Ministries. When people were understandably confused about why the good pastor couldn’t just fly commercial, Dollar
answered back in sermon, and as it is, his response was a pretty good summary of prosperity theology: “I can believe God as long as I want to! If I wanna believe God for a $65 million plane, you can’t stop me from dreamin’!” (It’s true, we can’t, not really.)
On Kanye West’s new gospel album Jesus Is King, out last Friday, he raps with similar conviction about charging extortionate merch prices. Following a highly visible and protracted fall from grace that I refuse to break down any further because I would sooner die, Kanye has returned to the church. His solvency is now a godly concern, and the devil works in straightforward but nonetheless evil ways, like through operating taxes and overhead cost. “I can’t be out here dancing with the stars,” Kanye says on “On God,” a song where he clumsily shifts accountability for the past few years of his public life onto a higher power. It’s only made listenable by a high-spirited Pi’erre Bourne beat, which sounds like plug-and-play superhero theme music. If Kanye West was ever a lightning rod, an irresistible force that remade popular American music in his image several times over, he’s now more like a personification of Tony Robbins’s flattest aphorisms standing on a Sunday school lesson book and a stack of tarot cards in an oversized Balenciaga jacket. His swift, wholesale change from superstar rapper to megachurch pastor can’t come as a complete surprise, though. He’s always been
a fan of
Ma$e.
The greatest sin of
Jesus Is King is that it’s boring, and Kanye—when not flattening literal centuries’ worth of text and thought about religious custom into a song about Chick-fil-A’s store hours—is inert, ineffectual, and generally difficult to believe in this space. Much like
a choral arrangement of “So Anxious.” The only song truly deserving of a second listen, if just to appreciate West’s skill as a producer, is “Follow God”—with its gravelly
Whole Truth sample and pounding drums, it could be a good piece of boom-bap in the hands of someone who still had some interest in rapping. How could Kanye, when there are tax shelters and low-income housing communities and hydrogen-powered iPlanes to build? Now that it’s not
just the Yeezy Supply line, the music feels even more like an obligation.
Jesus Is King is a way to wipe away his transgressions wholesale rather than thoughtfully engage with them. Go figure.
“I will no longer entertain—I’m not here for anyone’s entertainment,” West said during an interview with
Zane Lowe on Beats 1, during which he proclaimed himself to be “the greatest human artist of all time.” He also announced that another album,
Jesus Is Born, will be coming out on Christmas Day.
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