New York (AFP)
He was known as a rap superstar, fashion designer, Kim Kardashian's husband and Donald Trump supporter, proudly wearing a red cap "Make America Great Again". Kanye West has today donned a new headgear: that of a prophet of a genre he has resurrected, the "rap gospel".
The Chicago rapper released Friday his highly anticipated "Jesus is King", an album of 11 tracks, accompanied by a 35-minute documentary of the same name.
For a year, Kanye West traveled the United States and multiplied performances in thrilling religious services, captured on the Instagram account of his wife. "Jesus is King" draws the portrait of this man, saved by religion.
The style of the "Ye" of yesteryear is recognizable among a thousand rich rhymes, catchy rhythm and percussive samples - but he never tinted his rap of so many of these religious songs.
"Use this gospel as protection / The path is long to heaven", he sings in "Use This Gospel", tenth title of the album, accompanied by saxophonist Kenny G.
- "The profane and the sacred" -
This album also highlights the complex relationship between rap and gospel, two seemingly contradictory styles, but rooted in the same African-American culture.
"Many people perceive hip-hop as fundamentally opposed to religious tradition, as the layman and the sacred would oppose," AFP analyst Josef Sorett, an analyst at Columbia University, told AFP.
Rap and religious songs have already coexisted, under the name of "rap gospel". The genre appeared in the 1980s, shortly after hip-hop, but struggled to make its way, unsupported by industry and crushed by a "gangsta rap" increasingly predominant.
Kanye West had already tried to revive this tasty mix of genres. He sang in 2004 his love for religion in "Jesus Walks", and had in this quest been supported by another Chicago artist, Chance the Rapper, and his "Coloring book" (2016).
But with his ninth album, the "gospel rap" seems like resurrected.
- $ 200 Sweatshirts -
The religion Kanye West espouses is "like a generation that is less attached to institutions, but more to a notion of individual spirituality," notes Sorett.
This vocation has been the subject of several critics, some seeing it as more than a com 'coup and the opportunity to sell sweatshirts at $ 200 during his Sunday concerts.
But for other observers, the artist's surge of faith would be deeply linked to his recent tumults, from his clashes with the tabloids to his introduction to politics, to his personal fight against bipolarity, which he announced to suffer.
In a river interview given Thursday at Apple Music, Kanye West announced that a tenth album inspired by these Sunday Masses could fall at Christmas.
But beware of fans rushing to the stores. The artist is known to multiply the delays in his album releases.
"The more I am in the service of God, the more I empty my head and let God lead and use me as he sees fit," Kanye West explained in the interview.
The provocative rapper also gave an explanation for his decision to support Donald Trump: "For the greatest artist in history, putting a red hat on was a joke of God to all the people on the left so they say + No! Not Kanye! + "
© 2019 AFP