Kanye West has opened up about his new album, politics and religion in an emotive new interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s Beats 1. You can listen to the full interview here.
Prior to the arrival of his new album release, ‘Jesus Is King’, West spoke to Lowe in Wyoming and revealed that this Christmas, he’s releasing a new “Sunday Service album” called ‘Jesus is Born’. West also went on to talk about his recent conversion to Christianity.
West said: “Now that I’m in service to Christ, my job is to spread the gospel, to let people know what Jesus has done for me,” he said.
“I’ve spread a lot of things. There was a time I was letting you know what high fashion had done for me, I was letting you know what the Hennessey had done for me, but now I’m letting you know what Jesus has done for me, and in that I’m no longer a slave, I’m a son now, a son of God. I’m free.”
West also reflected on his Sunday Service performance at Coachella and his Yeezus tour, which included a Jesus Christ lookalike.
“God was using me and it lined up amazing, like, literally the Sunday was Easter Sunday, Kanye said of his performance at Coachella.
Of his Yeezus tour, West went on: “[God] is saying, ‘Let me take this Nebuchadnezzar-type character’ – Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon, and he looked at his entire kingdom and said, ‘I did this.’ I stood on the top of the mountain talking about Yeezus, saying, ‘I’m a God’—I had a guy dressed as Jesus.”
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West also discussed his meeting with US President Donald Trump last year and his decision to wear a Make America Great Again hat.
West said: “Give me some other examples where someone is saying what isn’t culturally what you’re supposed to say…Give me an example where someone is saying what you’re not supposed to say. You don’t want to say it, do you liberal?” he said to Lowe.
He continued: “And now—I am unquestionably, undoubtedly, the greatest human artist of all time. It’s not even a question at this point. It’s just a fact. For the greatest artist in human existence to put a red hat on was God’s practical joke to all liberals. Like, ‘Nooo, not Kanye!'”
West also discussed his bid for the 2024 US presidency, saying that he is “likely” to run for president.
“There will be a time when I will be President of the United States and I will remember…any founder that didn’t have the capacity to understand culturally what we’re doing.”
West also went on to address his ongoing beef with Drake. “Me and Drake had this disagreement and he refused to speak to me for six months. That was so painful…You cannot be in service to God and be mad at your brother next door…I go to Drake’s house with no security and just leave my number.”
He went on: “God is funny. Drake lives four blocks down the street from me. So that shows you that God has a sense of humour. Now, liberals love art, right?”
Today, West finally debuted ‘Jesus Is King’ at a massive premiere in Los Angeles.
The follow-up to 2018’s ‘Ye’ failed to arrive in September, despite the rapper sharing a track-list and previewing the record at his ongoing Sunday Sessions.
Last night, it finally debuted at a special listening and screening at the Forum in Los Angeles. Fans were treated to a showing of the 35-minute ‘Jesus Is King’ film, before West took the stage to perform select tracks from the record.
According to The Face, the performance was in entirely in keeping with the record’s gospel theme, with the floor of the Forum being transformed into a “pastoral landscape of reeds and long grass”. As for the record itself, it’s said that Kanye has “made an album entirely of Christian music. None of the songs he played included swearing, all of the songs he played included allusions to God.”