10/29/19
5:05 PM
Yup, It’s finally here— post on Kanye.
So is a new album by Kanye, after putting many of his fans and critics through an arduous hold, Yeezy returns with his self-proclaimed full gospel album, JESUS IS KING.
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Past all of the publicity stunts, the controversies, and the widespread contempt for Mr. West, it would be shortsighted to discredit the influence he has in the arts; his success in music, fashion, and business are aspects of his career that can’t be ignored, and hence his presence in the music industry is one of the most accredited and authoritative in his field. Taking these factors into his latest work, which received many questions and went through many scopes of inspection and analysis, I’m still a little iffy on how I feel about the album JESUS IS KING. So in order to further score and review this album, I chose to break down Kanye’s new work rooted in his recent transformation as a newborn Christian, in simply accounting for the pros and cons in this gospel driven project.
Starting with the pros, Kanye’s masterful utilization of the human voice is displayed. With the usage of a number of features as well as sampling and production techniques paired with the inclusion of the Sunday Service Choir, Ye fully encompasses his trademark “Soul beat” element into the gospel driven tracks, which is extremely appropriate for the genre. The production in itself holds up to the Kanye West standard— carefully constructed, rich, crisp, and advanced in itself, the layers that make up the background and the foreground both prove to be high quality and fitting to his artistry. The instrumentation on many of the tracks elevate the gospel feel of the work as well, using traditional gospel sounds and meshing them with other contemporary and modern components, creates for a harmonic cacophony between grand, intricate, and futuristic tones with a deconstructed, desert, and bare-bones inflection. The music aside, the auxiliary topic for this album is Kanye’s change of face to his Christian identity; which seems to be truthful and genuine to an ostensible degree— providing a reassurance to his additional controversial nature, but still fairly impressive for a character of his personage to uphold, given his past and image.
The cons, however seem to be correlated with most of the advantages found throughout the album as well. Primarily and the most notable of these is the fact that the project JESUS IS KING feels… a little boring in comparison to his other work. Glimpses of the potential that this album has is anticipated through all the tracks and often fails to deliver— there were many times where I thought to myself that there should have been more energy or pop in a segment, only for it to be continue on a more mellow note or to drop off eventually. The Album does in fact start off with a good amount of momentum, but goes on to recede rather quickly, then picks up just a tiny bit, then eases out again towards the end, never seeing a climax or a focal point in a true sense. Whether the fact that the album seemed to lack the liveliness or the intensity that most of Kanye’s previous work held was an artistic decision or not, I felt that JESUS IS KING was one of his least striking work. Another weak point of the album is the duration of the project, 11 tracks totaling at 27 minutes; in comparison, Ye’s EP/album, ye, which dedicated a large portion of its material on mental illnesses had a total length of approximately 24 minutes with only 7 tracks and was technically not even a full length album. The tedious wait for new releases from Kanye compared to the amount of product that was received feels a little lop-sided. Additionally, one of the confounding factors of JESUS IS KING is the foundation of the album: the faith driven aspect of the work doesn’t have much to back the lyrics and the reason of itself. Kanye, the notorious hedonist singing about Christ and faith is a little questionable to most listeners to say in the least. While his actions and words seems genuine in nature, some lyrics still seem a little shaky— justifying the prices of his brand, quoting biblical verses that doesn’t necessarily point to a meaning of the true gospel or the in direction towards Christ, and some other values of the album seem elementary in some levels. Lastly, one of the most critical weaknesses of this album was the fact that I questioned myself if I would have even listened to this album more than once if it wasn’t made by Kanye West.
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Overall, JESUS IS KING is the ninth official body of work released by Kanye, and like most of the things that Kanye does and says, requires a good amount of context. After listening to an extensive interview about the album, his conversion, and his visions in and of the future, the album makes a lot more sense than it did without the missing pieces. In conclusion, the newfound gospel album by Kanye provides an interesting listen if nothing else, and is a solid work of music in regards to its technical and prospective angles. It’s difficult to judge if the album is a success, but coming to a decision after listening to the album is a necessity in deciding if the music is good or not. However, in understanding the entirety of Kanye’s attitude and the facets of this project, I would suggest hearing about his motifs and mission on his interview if you want to get a full and inclusive representation of JESUS IS KING.
Watch Kanye West’s Interview with Zane Lowe
Listen to the album below: