After several months of delays and broken promises, legendary rapper and creative personality Kanye West released his album “Jesus is King” in late October. “Jesus is King” is a completely Christian album featuring no swear words and clean subject matter, making this project completely school friendly. Despite taking a unique twist on modern hip-hop with his religious messages, this may be the worst album I have heard from Kanye West and the worst that I’ve heard this year. With this album and its controversial support of Donald Trump, it seems that Kanye is purposefully trying to destroy his career and long lasting legacy that he has left behind. After a year of waiting and begging from his fans, Kanye releases a measly 27 minutes of some of the most mediocre music I have heard in recent memory.  

Let’s start with looking at this album from a musical standpoint. Production wise, “Jesus is King” could be worse; granted I don’t think Kanye could possibly make a bad beat if his life depended on it. Songs such as “Follow God”, “On God”, and “God is” really do showcase Kanye’s strength in music production; it almost makes you think about what these songs could be if they had engaging subject matter and messages. Lyrically is where this album really falls apart, and that’s not a rip on Christianity by any means, Kanye just manages to find a way to make this the most boring album of all time. “Closed on a Sunday” is a great example of wonderful production and a miss in the lyric department. He starts the song off with a somber and heart wrenching few guitar chords that leads you to expect some equally melancholy lyrics, but Kanye hits us with a “Closed on a Sunday, you my chick-fil-a… You’re my number one, with the lemonade” Wow. Absolutely groundbreaking message. Half-way through the album, I wished I could go back to old Kanye, the straight from the go Kanye, the chop up the soul Kanye, the set on his goals Kanye. I hate the new Kanye.

Where this album turns from a bad album into a crap show is within the politics surrounding this album. I’m not usually someone that factors outside influence into my preference of a song or an album, but here I just can’t ignore it. For those that don’t know much about Kanye, he may be one of the most narcissistic and apathetic rappers in history, constantly referring to his wife as a female dog, laying down some extremely dirty lyrics, and just showing a general lack of respect for the people around him, all while combining these together to make some exceptional music. Seeing Kanye release an album about his love for Jesus is sweet, but nobody asked for it. Kanye creates an album that is too hip-hoppy for true Christians to enjoy and way too pious for most hip-hop fans to enjoy. Not to mention he vehemently supports Donald Trump and since he made this Christian record, he seems to be appealing to a certain demographic, a demographic that doesn’t enjoy his music.

         Overall, “Jesus is King” is a failure and blemish in Kanye’s career. Hopefully he abstains from going down this new route of Christian rap or he probably won’t have much of a career in the future. I’m giving this album a 2/5 spartan heads because the lack of meaningful lyrics and effort, and because of his constant delays for this album, betraying many of his fan’s trust. If you want to hear an interesting blend of Christianity and hip-hop, I suggest listening to “Is He Real?” by IDK. If you want to listen to some good music this November, check out Joey Roehl’s review of “Pony” by Rex Orange County.