Review: "Jesus is King" Album by Kanye West
Last year, Kanye West announced that he was going to release an album titled “Yandhi”. The album, which was titled using a combination of Ye and Gandhi, was supposed to release in September of 2018. The album was delayed until November and then was ultimately canceled.
During 2019, Kanye started up something new called Sunday Service. Clips were posted on social media of Ye playing beats with a choir singing along with him. It appeared that he had found a new lane of music. He started doing Sunday Service regularly and it evolved as the choir started to do gospel flips of mainstream music.
In August, Kanye’s wife Kim Kardashian, seemed to announce that the rapper would soon be dropping an album titled “Jesus Is King”. After a few more delays, on October 25th, “Jesus Is King” was released to the world. Here are my thoughts.
Like everyone else, I didn’t really know what to expect from this project. It’s not everyday that an established, seasoned, successful mainstream artist decides to switch their genre to strictly gospel. My best guess what that Kanye’s album would be similar to the current sound of CHH (Christian Hip-Hop). He’d still have excellent production and would still rap the same amount. The only thing I expected to truly change was the language and the overall content.
After my first listen to “Jesus is King”, I was definitely caught off guard. If I’m being honest, I would have to classify this project as purely gospel instead of Christian Hip-Hop or Christian Rap. There is less rapping than I expected as the majority of the album is singing; whether it be Ye himself, the Sunday Service choir or a featured artist.
I’ll start off by saying I personally love the content. I am a CHH artist so this was right up my alley. He raps explicitly about God and Jesus in this album. He quotes scripture, biblical references and makes sure that the listener knows exactly who it is he is speaking about. I like being able to listen to a Kanye album and agree with and relate to everything he’s rapping and singing about. As far as content goes, there’s nothing negative I can say about the album.
Now, let’s talk about the actual music. After listening to it a handful of times, I will say that overall I enjoyed the album; however, there are very few songs that I would play on a daily or even weekly basis.
The project starts off a bit slow from tracks 1-3. The mixing on “Selah” and “Follow God” isn’t the greatest to me. They almost sound as if they aren’t finished. Track 4, “Closed on Sunday”, is the first song I heard on the project that truly caught my ear. It has replay value in my opinion and is catchy. I even enjoy the cheesy little play on words with Chick-fil-a. “Closed on Sunday, you my Chick-fil-A. You're my number one, with the lemonade.” The very next track “On God” is alright. The rapping is very simplistic and the beat is a little odd but overall it’s not an awful track.
For me, the album truly starts at track 6, “Everything We Need”. I love the album from this point until the end. Tracks 6 - 11 feel as if they were worked on much longer and harder than the songs before them. “Everything We Need” is probably my favorite track on the project. Ty Dolla $ign does his thing, the track is very catchy and bouncy, and it has a very smooth and polished sound.
The rest of the album is full of tracks with the same quality as Track 6. Kanye kills the production on these tracks especially the sampling on “Hands On” and the beat for “Use This Gospel”. Clipse reunites on “Use This Gospel” (which is amazing fyi) and Kanye closes us out with some singing on “Jesus Is Lord”.
Overall, while I love the content that Kanye comes with, I can see why fans of his claim that the quality of Ye’s music is starting to fall off. It feels as if this project was rushed, in my opinion (Which is crazy because he’s presumably had a year to work on it). I dislike this because it adds fuel to those who claim that Christian music and Christian rap don’t “bang” or match the quality of mainstream music.
I’m glad to see Kanye attempting to become a better man and it’s interesting to watch and listen to his musical transition, but I do think that if he wants to make gospel music or Christian rap his permanent lane, he needs to try to maintain the same quality of music that we are used to receiving from him.