Agreed.....
I'm copying and pasting posts I wrote in another
thread about Kanye West that are aligned with what you wrote.
I haven't invested extensive thought into Kanye West or Kim Kardashian beyond my own glimpse when they came to my hometown church for Easter services last year, though I have listened to his newest album. The paparazzi arrived to set up well before they actually arrived, making it obvious that it was an orchestrated event. It's not uncommon for celebrities to come to our church, and for advance notice to be given ---- to the church itself. There's a security staff, plus CHP is there to direct traffic, and they have a protocol in place for ushering in famous people discreetly so they are able to worship with privacy and peace, and not generate chaos for everyone else there for church. But staff had not been notified about Kanye and Kim coming for that service. They found out due to the paparazzi.
When photos were released people were critical of the paparazzi, viewing it as intrusive that they had followed the family to church, but the opposite was the case. They did not follow the family, they were directed as to where the family would be, and even where they'd park. I felt like they used one of the most sacred worship services of the year for us as a photo op for them.
Similarly, in Kanye's new album I feel like he's hawking faith in it. That it is exploitative, a commodification of the splendor and resonance of spiritual music. It has some of the beauty of it clashing jarringly with the narcissism of Kanye's lyrics. The songs on it are strikingly different, much more shallow, self-absorbed, and kitschy, from the ones about Jesus I listened to when I was tiny. My kindergarten Sunday school class danced along to Jesus Walks. We loved it, we bopped around to it all the time, even if we didn't understand many of the lyrics then; the refrain of it resonated with us. Kanye circa the mid-2000s was a reasonable role model, but I wouldn't play his current music to my little sisters. Listening to that album brought me sadness instead of fortifying my faith in any way. Even if I didn't know about Kanye's public meltdowns I would suspect bipolar was a factor in his newest album due to the self-grandiosity of it. I feel it was an album made for followers of Kanye more than one made for followers of Christ. It's also a lyrical disaster. It's not much of an album or very Christian, despite being marketed as a Christian album.
-------------------
The OP of the other thread responded discussing the enormously inappropriate lyrics of the
Jesus Walks and how Kanye's songs should not be played for children. The dude is totally right! I had never, in all this time, actually listened to the original version of that song much less read the lyrics for it. I was stunned and horrified!
This was my response:
I actually never listened to the explicit version of Jesus Walks until I read your post and played it on Spotify while reading the lyrics. My face is currently like
- just stupefied. You're totally right. Whoa. As a little kid I innocently bopped along to the "clean" version scrubbed of profanity, and was absolutely oblivious to the meaning. It has the cadence of a marching band so it was a lot of fun to dance to, and only the seemingly Christian aspects of it caught my attention back then.
I listened to his newest album out of curiosity about it, but have no desire to hear it or any of his other music again.