Album Reviews

Kanye West's devotion to Jesus is nothing new; it's a recurring subject throughout his discography. On his 2004 single “Jesus Walks,” he raps, “Now I ain’t here to argue ‘bout His facial features/Or here to convert atheists into believers.” In recent traveling-church-service performances with the Sunday Service choir, however, he changes the second aforementioned line to “we here to convert atheists into believers.”

Yet, as my atheist self can testify, Ye’s long awaited Christian rap album JESUS IS KING fails to do so. Even at a mere 27 minutes, JIK, despite its share of highlights, can often be a tedious, lazy, cringe-inducing, surface-level showing of Christian devotion that nearly bores the listener to tears. In particular, though the album is about Jesus, it doesn’t explain why Kanye chose to make a gospel album now (for that, you’d have to dig through the interviews). It features the worst song Kanye ever wrote, replete with shockingly terrible bars, and abominable verses. It sounds unfinished.

JESUS IS KING: A Brief History

In September 2018, Kanye announced Yandhi, a new album set to release after his 9/29 Saturday Night Live appearance. Kanye appears on SNL three times that night: the first with Lil Pump, both jokingly dressed as water, the second delivering a breathy verse on Teyana Taylor’s unreleased “We Got Love,” and the third performing “Ghost Town” wearing a MAGA hat before confusing the cast with a “rant” (or whatever the Kanye-hating media calls it). What about the album? Nope!


A few weeks later, Kanye announces Yandhi’s new release date: Black Friday 2018. That didn’t last long either; after KIDS SEE GHOSTS’ Camp Flog Gnaw performance in a suspended glass box, he realized Yandhi wasn’t ready. It never officially dropped, although the full album recently leaked. Yandhi tracks “The Storm” and “Law Of Attraction” respectively became JESUS IS KING’s “Everything We Need” and “Use This Gospel”.

The Review

Upon Yandhi’s leaking, I concluded that if released in its leaked state, it would’ve been Kanye’s worst album (7.5/10). Shockingly, however, JIK is even worse. Imagine Kanye’s 2016 masterpiece The Life Of Pablo, but instead it’s Chance the Rapper’s The Big Day. That’s JESUS IS KING. It’s a massive disappointment, especially considering that with the Yandhi debacle included we waited 13 months and four missed release dates!

The narrative on JESUS IS KING shows Kanye being saved by Jesus. The first part, from “Selah” to “On God,” starts with Kanye in his egotistical celebrity rapper mindset, yet still knowing he needs to reconnect with his religion. He then commits himself and his family to Christianity (“Closed On Sunday”) and, while showing one last burst of his own ego, thanks God on “On God.” On “Everything We Need” he resets himself (highlighted by the line “switch your attitude”) and on “Water” is cleansed by God. “God Is” shows Yeezy wanting to heal the world with God, which he does on “Hands On.” Finally, on “Use This Gospel,” he encourages people to use their faith to defend against demons. In a way, it connects to KIDS SEE GHOSTS, where Kanye and Kid Cudi confront their internal demons. Here, Kanye’s using his religion to (supposedly) defend against them. Still, the JESUS IS KING narrative is the most shallow and one-dimensional of Kanye’s discography. It also fails the between album connections his best work manages.

Among the album’s biggest problems is simply how Jesus-centric it is. Of course, I expected a very religious album, but Kanye shoehorns Biblical references even when they don’t fit. His devotion to Christianity is, I believe, genuine, but in stark contrast to his famously multifaceted masterpieces, JESUS IS KING suffers from his forcibly making every single aspect of the album about Jesus.

Even worse, however, is the actual quality of the music. Even though Kanye premiered the LP in late September in front of audiences before “fixing” it, it still sounds unfinished and rushed. I really hope he makes to it The Life Of Pablo-level changes, because the current JESUS IS KING is totally incohesive. Although nowhere near the excellence of his previous work, the production is, as usual, good. “Follow God” has an “old Kanye” type beat, Pi’erre Bourne’s “On God” instrumental sounds like a combination of Graduation and Yeezus eras Ye, and “Use This Gospel,” in addition to reuniting the Clipse, makes use of Kenny G in a previously thought impossible great way.

Lyrically, however, JESUS IS KING is abysmal. From “People really know you push your buttons like typewrite” and “I was looking at the ’Gram and I don’t even like likes” on album highlight track “Follow God”, to “Said I finna do a gospel album/What have you been hearing from the Christians?” on “Hands On”, the bad lyrics are never ending.

I appreciate his musical and personal evolution, but after this, I miss Kanye rapping about wishing his dick had GoPro. “Closed On Sunday,” the lyrics of which generated the most album content buzz, opens with the line, “Closed on Sunday, you’re my Chick-fil-A.” Following that is: “Hold the selfies, put the ‘Gram away/Get your family, y’all hold hands and pray/When you got daughters always keep them safe/Watch out for vipers, don’t let them indoctrinate” as well as “Closed on Sunday, you’re my Chick-fil-A/You’re my number 1 with the lemonade”/“Follow Jesus, listen and obey.” Online, many people are angry about Kanye giving the homophobic Chick-fil-A owners free publicity (not that he really sounds like he’s supporting Chick-fil-A or its political views), but I’m more appalled that Kanye simply couldn’t think of a better lyric! “Closed On Sunday” is without a doubt Kanye’s worst song, released or not, yet he still performed it on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. On the trying-to-be-epic “Selah,” Kanye lists bible verses as if they’re groceries, and on the self-focused “On God,” he rationalizes the $200+ price tag of Yeezys, to the IRS not acknowledging him as a tax break-eligible religious organization, saying he can’t let his family starve. No matter how much debt he’s in, Kanye’s family will never starve; this lyric only comes across as a miserably failed attempt at “relatability”.

The other major issue: is the album even finished? Doesn’t sound like it. A few days ago, Kanye rerecorded a line in “God Is,” showing that he’s still editing it though not nearly as much as it needs. Some of the songs just end without really concluding. For example, Yandhi’s “The Storm” has a buildup at the end, which is missing on the rework, “Everything We Need.” Had the latter featured the former’s ending, it would’ve been more conclusive and complete, yet somehow Kanye managed to take a finished song and "un-finish" it. At 49 seconds, album closer “Jesus Is Lord” suddenly stops at its end, even though there’s a full length version of the song (instead titled “Every Knee Shall Bow”) in the JESUS IS KING IMAX film’s credits. Why include the truncated version on what is to most the definitive document of 2019 Kanye? I guess we’ll never know.

Shockingly, the film is so great that it makes me like the album even less! At 35 minutes, it shows Kanye and the Sunday Service choir earlier this year performing in James Turrell's Roden Crater. The first half of it focuses on the choir performing traditional gospel material, while in the second half, Kanye performs a raw, soulful rendition of his own "Street Lights" and sings "Use This Gospel" to his son Psalm West. While it ends too soon, the film's artful camera angles and focus on the choir and their surroundings rather than Kanye makes it, compared to the album, a far truer statement of Kanye's faith. It feels like Kanye put 95% of his creativity and effort into the film and the remaining 5% into the album, which is a shame as the album has more exposure than the film (the LP shifted 264k album-equivalent units in its first week, while the limited release film took in $1 million on its first weekend).

On nearly all levels, JESUS IS KING’s sonics are simply atrocious. Kanye’s vocals sound as if recorded through a $10 gaming headset, the choir sounds flat, lifeless, and overdriven; there’s a dumb noise floor on “Hands On,” and you can hear the splices in Kenny G’s “Use This Gospel” solo. The mixing of the original 10/25 release is a sonic crime, even more so than the 2018 Wyoming albums; the beat in “Everything We Need” is mixed way too low, “Jesus Is Lord” is a complete mess, the drums on “Selah” bury Kanye’s poorly-recorded voice, and across the board there’s ridiculous clipping. A day after the initial release, Kanye and producer/engineer Mike Dean fixed the volume issues on “Everything We Need” and “Selah,” but the other problems remain. Since these issues sound baked into the mix and recording, I can’t really comment on the mastering but it’s definitely less than stellar.

I do believe Kanye’s passion and devotion to Christianity is genuine. After all, JESUS IS KING feels like the conclusion to the period from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to now; a ten year journey where, in the trappings of celebrity life and ego, Kanye loses his religious connection and slowly regains it. With that said, however, the Sunday Service events (featuring traditional gospel songs as well as rearranged Kanye compositions) as well as the IMAX film more naturally demonstrate that devotion. By comparison, the album feels forced, as if Kanye, when he really didn't have to, needed to prove something to the wider public. Where he will go musically from here, we don’t know. Hopefully this is a passing sign of mid-life crisis, much like Bob Dylan’s eerily similar gospel period. If Kanye truly abandoned secular music, though, all we can hope for is that he puts more of his time and effort into the recorded music rather than rushing out a half-baked work like this one.