Ye's Latest: Questioning Jesus While Calling Himself God

Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, has been an enigma since he emerged on the world stage in 2004 with “The College Dropout,” his first solo album. He’d already begun blazing his trail with words he penned in poetry as a young child and later, the writing he’d done for other artists. His genius with words is undeniable. His poetry is enchanting. His music is engaging. His fashion sense, though not for everyone, is definitely yet another gift.

But with his genius comes confusion that continues to resurface. Ye is also the man who said George Floyd died from fentanyl, has worn a “white lives matter” T-shirt and said “racism is a dated concept,” and he continues to make anti-Semitic remarks. And now his issues about faith and God are resurfacing again.

In a March 16 interview with Big Boy about his latest album “Vultures,” West said, among other things, that he has issues with Jesus.

“There’s a lot of stuff I went through that I prayed, and I ain’t see Jesus show up. So I had to put my experience in this world, my experience with my children, my experience with other people, my experience with my account, my experience with my brand, and my experience with the level of music that I was dealing with in my own hands,” Ye said.

“The main thing that really that I don’t rock with is it’s just always like, ‘I’ma pray for you.’ And it’s just like, you can actually physically do something yourself too, more than just pray.”

His dilemma seemed to be, “We ain’t praying our way out of prison. We ain’t praying our way out the abortion clinics. We ain’t praying our way to get our land back that was always ours after gentrification, after the Harlem Renaissance and Black Wall Street was burned to the ground. Them prayers ain’t working,” Ye said.

Ye’s fans are not in disagreement with his dislike for unanswered prayers. Neither are many staunch people of faith.

“I began my search for God when I was 18, when my grandfather died, and I was OK for a while,” says Catalina Byrd, politician, activist, mother, and lover of Ye. “But I know the feeling of prayers not being answered. When my husband was killed some years later, I felt totally abandoned by God. While my trek of discovery left me with the feeling that no faith had it right, the deep hurt and frustration I experienced ended my search.”

She supports her friends and family members who embrace formal faith, but she’s done.

Declaring He’s God

And then there was Ye’s declaration of himself as God.

‘Cause I’m God,” he said, “And anyone who wants to disagree, I’m the God of me”

Proudly Embracing Jesus

This is in strict contrast to his previous theology — and the message of his Sunday Service — which was launched in 2019 and whose live services were halted principally because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an October 2019 interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1, before the release of his ninth studio album “Jesus Is King,” Kanye proudly proclaimed that he’d abandoned secular music.

“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.”

Arlen Watson Sr. calls himself a Kanye fan from the heart and says he understands where Ye is coming from.

“I look at his early music that was not really accepted because he believed God was in control. His ‘I Am a God’ helped Black young people build self esteem,” the DJ-dad tells Word In Black. “It’s words of affirmation. God is almighty, all-knowing, all powerful, and we fall short. But we strive to be God.”

The Sunday Service Choir

The songs lifted during those services offered a seemingly Christian theology exalting Jesus and all he’s been to those who receive him. Throngs of young people gathered at his services from Los Angeles to Paris and Howard University.

A song performed in early 2020 in Paris, referred to weapons formed against us not being successful, referring to scripture in the New Testament book of Romans.

The organ sounded like one in any Black worship service on any given Sunday.

At a Sunday service that was live from Howard University in early 2020, the choir sang “Never Would’ve Made It” by gospel singer and preacher Rev. Marvin Sapp.

Throughout its various performances, the Sunday Service choir went so far as to tune up some of the old favorites like, “Father, I stretch my hands to thee. No other help I know. If Thou withdraw thy help from me, Oh whither shall I go?”

This is the basis of African-American faith sung by slaves, sung by the newly freed from slavery, sung by people with many jobs trying to make ends meet. The same songs sung by people who couldn’t read when it was still illegal to teach Black people to read.

These songs were sung by people who had to work with what they could get, and even though their freedom felt sketchy, they trusted God to be for them.

It is the basis of Christian faith, especially Black theology, that sings of liberation while still under the gun of American freedom.

In the end, as Watson says, “Ye’s a loose cannon, but it’s for entertainment.”