Jesus Walks, Kanye Stumbles
Go home Yeezy, you’re drunk off of all that power
“Jesus Christ, Superstar / Do you think you’re what they say you are?”
If you’re a Christian like Kanye West proclaims to be, you were raised knowing that God placed his son Jesus on the Earth to spread his message of goodwill. After 33 years, Jesus would die for our sins and save the world. By comparison, Donda West’s son “Yeezus” — like Jesus Christ, Muhammad Ali, and many other great black men before him — has a well documented God complex. At 37, West’s rollout of his seventh studio album The Life of Pablo showcases everything that could’ve happened if Jesus Christ had overstayed his welcome.
Kanye really did it on February 11, 2016, turning Madison Square Garden into the Megachurch Of Yeezus. He delivered Season 3 of his Yeezy fashion line as a Sermon on the Mount, accompanied by his latest album as a choir soundtrack. It was a black church moment swaddled in pop cultural tones and the whole world was in attendance. Similarly, when Jay Z “retired” at MSG, it was the latest in a history of iconic hip-hop culture moments at the “world’s greatest arena.” Fashion, hip-hop and the building on the corner of West 33rd and 7th in Manhattan have been united since Run-DMC defiantly held their laceless Adidas sneakers aloft in 1985. Three decades later, Kanye eclipsed the standard set by both Run-DMC and later his mentor Jay Z.
Five years ago, Kanye stated that “no one man should have all that power.” Those lyrics have become emblematic of the one-time Louis Vuitton Don predicting that, in fact, he would one day be the man with “all that power.” His Madison Square Garden unveiling was the day that he marshaled that concentrated power into his most grandiose form of posturing yet. Yet one day before, Kanye showcased on every level that he’s merely human, and has cracked under the pressure of his self-appointed “spiritual” calling.
The Life of Pablo is the first time that the move towards black empowerment in pop music has been pushed in a direction inspired by not just religion, but also by its overtones from the black church. Kanye’s epic dozens-playing with Wiz and Amber and self-reverential tweeting prior to release is reminiscent of everything black men have loved for generations about talking shit at barber shops and on street corners. This extends to the album as well: from Chance the Rapper’s paean to Kanye-as-rap verses on “Ultra Light Beam” to the Rev. Creflo Dollar-like megachurch pastor obsession with wealth. Its tracks lavish praise on himself and anger towards his detractors with brazen statements of his own “faith healing miracles,” like say, making Taylor Swift famous. It represents everything that black churchgoers love about a sermon that stretches on about 30 minutes too long.
Yeezy’s latest religiosity aside, black music overall is in a wild space and doing wild things right now. Rihanna’s speaking out for angsty and club-going black female heathens, while Beyonce’s taking a stance for black empowerment and black people in traditional and modern ratchet forms. Now here comes Honorable Minister Deacon Father Prophet God Kanye with the answer from the black church. However, we shouldn’t expect this to be anything meeting the norms set by Malcolm, Martin, Jesse or even Louis Farrakhan, as the stereotypical and “traditional” “black” space in pop culture and Kanye are presently-and-forever awkwardly related.
Mr. West has moved from “dope backpack rapper” to “creative artist in multiple media formats.” To this end, in 2013, he even told Zane Lowe that he enjoys recording music as a way to “[speak] with textures.” Obviously, this doesn’t necessarily jibe well with the accepted spaces that rap as a black-dominated format have dared to tread. West as a black rapper is breaking new ground in new creative domains, or as Kanye again told Zane Lowe, he’s “here to crack the pavement and make new grounds, you know, sonically and society, culturally.” This even extends to the method of delivery of his message, too. Fashion, blackness and rap were once Fubu, Roc-A-Wear and even recently Donatella Versace turning up to Migos on the runway. However, Kanye’s doing high art-as-fashion, but mixing in centuries of blackness and black spiritualism, as showcased through the lens of European classicism and post-modern creativity. It’s a head rush and but it is hard to compare Yeezy Season 3’s clothes and Pablo’s songs to Kendrick’s album or even Beyonce’s “Formation.” It is the most difficult-to-accept artistic creation spurred by this new resurrection of black revolutionary idealism. Now toss Kanye’s God complex into that mix.
At the moment that Jesus died, skepticism regarding the veracity of his message was at an all-time high. His disciples had forsaken him. Also, the scribes and Pharisees were against him, Pilate and Caesar had ruled against him, and he felt forsaken by God. The latter was particularly difficult as Jesus saw God as not just his father, but the man who sent him down to Earth to deliver a message and die.
Comparatively, at the time of releasing Yeezus in 2013, it can now be said that Kanye-as-Jesus (Yeezus) was projecting himself into the role of being Jesus questioning God as he was facing his own (artistic) demise. The album, not unlike Jesus’ moment with God, is stark, violent and intentionally dissonant. The track “I Am A God” is exactly that, Kanye standing up to his “father.” Forsaken by his disciples and with the scribes against him, the album is in many ways best now to be seen as a creative “death” of sorts.
Kanye’s so deep into his rapper/creative/designer-as-savior role that with his seventh album he’s proving that he’s blaspheming all existing biblical and religious traditions. He’s living a life after “death” that sees him not ascending to the right hand of God, but marrying Mary Magdalene, having two children, and continuing to proclaim the holy word. Yet there’s no biblical standard by which the Chicago native is able to mimic his life-as-religious parable. Kanye’s using fashion, European standards and shifting modern black cultural expression as a guide and still trying to make this all work seamlessly. Yet this album and fashion line fail to discover the new direction to take either black culture or the world-at-large.
The worst thing about The Life of Pablo is that it’s ultimately superfluous, a bunch of sound and fury, signifying nothing. In Kanye’s God complex-driven life, the moment when he felt himself questioning God is the moment he should’ve realized that his career was coming to an end. If wanting to still consider Kanye’s possibly religious motivations, the shift from Moses to John The Baptist to Jesus is likely what Kanye was staring at, contemplating his own artistic mortality when seeing the pop cultural and rap rise of both Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Both Kendrick and Drake are upgrading black musical and cultural traditions for the modern age in ways that are less left-field and more populist than Kanye’s work. These younger artists are proving their relevance and showcasing a new style of leadership for hip-hop fans and black people-as-quasi “Christian” and fanatical, religious-like followers.
Kanye West believes himself to be a spiritual leader and over the past decade, has exposed the world to what he may likely believe is the message of God. Somehow, though he’s closely mimicked Jesus, he’s very consciously living past the moment when Jesus died. He’s celebrating this “success” with an album and fashion line to showcase where he — and not the God whose son he’s out-lived and whose biblical traditions he’s so closely followed — expects to lead the world. Unfortunately, Kanye West is many things, but a God with a clear vision of the future is not one of them.
On February 11, 2016, Yeezus proved his own statement true: no one man should have all that power.
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