Wow, it has been a long time since I last wrote about music. I thought I had gone into permanent retirement because of the long length of my hiatus but Kanye had other plans. Before I talk about the album that brought me back from the writing grave, I want to talk about Kanye the man first. This album is about so much more than music to me, its about a journey and a celebration. Many of the people who read this review don’t know that I used to hate Kanye West. Like the rest of the world, I joined the Kanye-hating bandwagon after the Taylor Swift incident of 2009. I saw him for what the media painted him as – a selfish, self-centered, careless person. It wasn’t until Kanye started dating Kim Kardashian that I questioned everything that I thought about him. Many people who read this do know that I love Mrs. West. I see Kim as so much more than a sex symbol and a beautiful woman. To me, she has always been an example of poise and seems to be much more thoughtful and down-to-earth than people are willing to give her credit for. So, when she started dating Kanye, I had to reevaluate the judgements I had made. I can’t pinpoint a time or event that caused me to change my outlook on Kanye but I know that I went from hating him to appreciating him for the honest man that he is. There are not many celebrities out there that would stand for what they believe regardless of what it may cost them.

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This album is everything I thought it wouldn’t be. I don’t know why I expected less from Kanye. My overall sentiments about this album are that I love it, and I won’t wait until the end of this review to tell you that I give it a full five stars, but the reasons that I love it are probably not for the reasons that most would suspect. In order to fully explain what this album has brought out of me I have to go a little more into my history as fan of Kanye West.

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Unlike most fans of Kanye, I was (and still am) in it for his personality and not his music. And unlike most fans of rap music, I like Kanye’s music post 2009 over his music before 2009. The thing that draws me the most towards Kanye is his unwavering ability to say exactly how he feels. “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” “Slavery was a choice.” “Beyoncé deserved to win this award.” I can’t deny that there are definitely times that he should have just kept his mouth shut for the sake of himself and society but there are also times when society should have pushed past the words and looked for the meaning to understand the man. The whole slavery was a choice debacle was nothing short of messy. As was the MAGA hat. But if we can’t respect people for having different opinions and different priorities than ourselves or than our community then the only way we can go from here is down. It was in having to find a way to justify and explain these things that caused me to check my own bias and judgement. I knew that there was more to Kanye than people were allowing for and having to search within myself for that caused me to grow as a person. I developed the skill of being able to see and understand people for the beauty that was within them and not just what was presented on the outside. God used Kanye to begin that process in me.

I know it may seem like I have veered from talking about the album, but I promise this is all related. Let me talk about a couple of my favourite songs on Jesus is King to help bring this full circle.

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Follow God. This song’s production really reminds me of my beautiful dark twisted fantasy (MBDTF) which happens to be one of my favourite Kanye albums. It’s got such a 2000s rap vibe to it, but make it Kanye. This is the first song on the album where you get to see the story of Kanye and this transformation. You learn so much about him without even appreciating it. ‘I was looking at the gram and I don’t even like likes’ tells us about how Kanye really tries to not care about what society thinks and yet even he is subject to the pressures of today’s culture. Four times in the song he says ‘told me it ain’t Christ like’ and once he says ‘but nobody ever tell you when you’re being like Christ’. Think about the contrast of those statements. As a Christian, and as a regular member of society, I can attest that people tend to be quicker to judge than they are to affirm. But there’s more to this than just the words. Think about the fact that he said ‘told me it ain’t Christ like’ four times and only ‘but nobody ever tell you when you’re being like Christ’ only once. Even the number of times that he repeats the statements lends itself to emphasizing the validity of the statement. This is what I love about Kanye, if you search for it, there is so much intention behind what he does.

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On God. Another a huge reminder of MBDTF era Kanye. The production on this song is crazy good, but again, it’s not the most important aspect of the song to me. His heart is really on his sleeve with this one and he really takes ownership for his journey and yet submits it to God at the same time. I wish I could talk about every single lyric on the song, but that would be a whole other blog post in itself. I urge you to actually read the lyrics the next time you listen to this song because there is so much to it. My favourite lyrics are ‘thou shall love thy neighbour, not divide; ima ride, that’s on God’, ‘single mothers know they got my heart’, ‘they had me chasing statues, that’s on pride’, ‘when I thought the book of Job was a job’, ‘the devil had my soul I can’t lie; life gon have some lows and some highs’, ‘I bleached my hair for every time I could’ve died; but I survived, that’s on God’, ‘I can’t be out here dancing with the stars’. I know what you’re thinking. That’s half the song. I won’t go too deep into each of those but I will briefly explain why I love them. Admittedly, the lyrics about the book of Job and dancing with the stars only made the list because I think they’re charmingly funny and honest. He recognizes the fallacy of pride when he raps about chasing statues and quotes scripture while providing a reminder to society about peace in community when he says 'love thy neighbour, not divide'. The lyrics about single mothers and the devil having his soul are little glimpses into the mind and the heart of Kanye West and how he views his life but the lyrics about him bleaching his hair are really what stood out to me. He’s testifying. He’s telling us about how he could’ve died several times (we all remember the blonde phases) and yet he didn’t because of the grace of God. You really get a sense from this song that Ye really believes that God isn’t finished with him and he’s doing his best to lean into that. It’s on God.

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Water. This song made my top three solely because of production. I can appreciate the lyrics but I think the production value on this one is more significant. I love the start and end where he auto-tunes his voice and he’s doing his Kanye-style ad-libbing. I love the places that Kanye chose to use the choir’s harmonies and where he chose to rap and where he chose to have Ant Clemons sing. The structure of the song is very full-circle and also contributes to the theme of water by mirroring the properties of water. Notice that it goes from ad-libbing to Ant Clemons’ verse to Kanye rapping to Ant Clemons verse back to ad-libbing. Much like the three changing states of water. Imagine the song as going through the cycle of vapor to liquid to ice to liquid back to vapor. Now think about how each section of this song feels to you. The ad-libbing is very soft and kind of feels sparse like a vapor, the singing verses are smooth and peaceful like water and the rapping is a little harder and even the production changes for this part of this song, making it icy. He literally uses water sounds in the background of the song. The whole song just flows so well, like water.

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To quickly sum up my sentiments about the album as a whole and as a musical piece, I would describe it as soulful, cathartic, beautiful and exciting. I was surprised that it was more a rap album than a typically-gospel album. If you’ve ever listened to an Israel Houghton or Fred Hammond album you’ll know that I’m referring to the musical style and not the content. I expected this album to be reworks of already-popular songs led by his Sunday Service choir like many of the snippets we’ve all seen on social media. I am so glad that it wasn’t. I really wish I could go into every single song. Although I only talked about my top three, they do not beat the other songs by much. Every song is so intentional and captivating. 

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If you got this far and think that this review is just a biased tribute to how much I love Kanye West (which is both more and less than you think) then you’ve missed the point. There is a beautiful story unfolding before our eyes and we are missing it – yes, even the people who love the album could be missing it – because this is so much more than an album. It is a testimony and confession and all of the beautiful highs and lows of life, which God is currently demonstrating through Kanye West.

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I know the naysayers think that this is just a phase for Kanye and if he changes gears then we’ll all have been made fools but open up your eyes to see that this is not about Kanye. It’s on God.