ALBUM REVIEW: "Jesus Is King" by Kanye West

We are at the point in Kanye's career where weird and unexpected album rollouts - often seemingly random and unprofessional from the outside - have become commonplace. By the time we had been given a third release date for what was supposedly going to be Kanye West's ninth album Jesus Is King there had been so much noise and meaningless chatter and back and forth on the internet from not only Kanye himself but seemingly everyone else in the music industry that I was on the verge of not caring anymore. Normally I try to take every album on its own merit as much as I can and take outside influence and context to further inform my opinion as is appropriate, but in the case of Jesus Is King all of the bullshit surrounding it was unavoidable. I was always going to have something to say about the idea of Kanye West releasing a "gospel album", and by the time it was actually available to listen to my mind had almost entirely been made up already. Which was unfair to a degree, because there are certainly admirable things to be found on Jesus Is King, but by and large the feelings I had about what a Kanye West gospel album would be like were realised in some form or another.

First of all, the lyrical content. Let me make this clear; this is not going to be some kind of evaluation of West as a person and as a Christian, something that I have seen far to much of on the internet (although to be fair I will probably address this issue at some point in the near future on it's own blog post). Let me also make this clear; Jesus Is King is not so much a gospel album about God as it is an album about Kanye himself and his own views and beliefs. Which is fine, but I don't buy for a second his claim that he charges the absurd prices he does for shoes and merch for the sake of keeping his family from starving. Not only is it plain that Jesus Is King is really an album about Kanye, but it is equally as plain that Kanye really does try. Because it oozes a sense of real honesty and transparency, something that has started to appear on Kanye releases in recent years, particularly on last year's ye. This yields patchy results, though. In places it generates some real nuance and power, but in others it really just highlights Kanye's delusions, questionable theology, narcissism and indulgences. There are some fantastic moments, but for each one of those there are a few moments that can only be described as Kanye attempting to write about God but really just addressing himself, his public profile and his very public struggle with mental health. Unfortunately, because this is a gospel album (supposedly), this comes across as self-indulgent, whiney and annoying rather than intensely personal or affecting.

At only 27 minutes Jesus Is King is another entry in the pantheon of shorter releases Kanye has been involved with recently - ye, the amazing Kid Kudi collaboration album KIDS SEE GHOSTS, and Pusha T's Daytona in particular. But whereas those projects were short, sharp and to the point, getting in and out and leaving everything on the table, Jesus Is King largely feels unfinished. Case in point, the baffling final track "Jesus Is Lord" which stops seemingly randomly after less than a minute, an instance made more baffling by the fact that it is the final moment of the album. There are a multitude of great musical ideas, and unsurprisingly it sounds phenomenal from a production point of view, but for the most part those great musical ideas are left in the state that they are initially presented to us, undeveloped and undercooked. There are glimpses of what you would expect from an artist of this calibre in terms of songwriting on tracks like "Selah" and "God Is", but beyond that the tracklist feels incredibly underwhelming and without any real momentum or direction. Jesus Is King comes and goes quickly but not in a good way, in a way that leaves you without any real takeaways or memorable moments to encourage repeated listens.

So in summary, as you can probably tell I am not a fan of Jesus Is King. Despite moments of great beauty and sonic wonderment scattered throughout, it is undercooked, unmemorable, and most importantly a woefully misguided attempt at bringing glory to the Lord that more often than not shifts the focus to Kanye himself. I'm sure you've already heard this album anyway, and likely you don't need me to tell you this as a result, but if you are looking for a great Kanye album this is not the album for you, and if you are looking for a great gospel album this is not the album for you. For someone who claims to be the "greatest artist in human existence", Kanye really isn't doing much to cement that ludicrous claim at the moment.

Rating: D