Or How Conservative Evangelicalism Engages the Alt-Right:

The final line of the p4k interview hit me really hard today, unexpectedly, and inspired me to process all of my thoughts/feelings around the album and this stage of my goat's arc atm: "Kanye albums used to stretch our perspectives and imaginations. Now they illuminate the contours of his increasingly shrunken world." A statement I couldn't agree with more.

What drew me to ye back in the day and set him entirely apart was his Nietzschean ethos and ubermensch mentality in which YOU are the power capable of manifesting and self-determining your own destiny.

For the single greatest living paragon of the Übermensch mentality, one that never follows the “herd instinct”, to invoke platitudes of Christian morality and speak in cliche terms of "predestination", coupled with his incredibly convoluted and mixed messages about capitalism and class consciousness: It's all all just too much for me to process. I'll play the record, sure, and enjoy most it it (on a production level), but I won't be looking to this record for existential INSIGHT or spiritual GUIDANCE, as I did of his records in the past.

Of course I was concerned ever since we got Sunday Service, and knew the title and intention of the album, but JIK just feels so thematically shallow/hollow.

I know he's done being singularly immersed and consumed by his projects since he's a family man now, and I couldn't be happier for his happiness that is so well deserved, but if Jesus/God is Love, and our actions should be based on love if we want spiritual salvation, where is any indication on the album that ye is exploring these serious themes in any serious degree of artistic depth?

Where are the post-religion capital-T Truisms that other prophets, in some form or another, have discovered on their path to enlightenment? What is the REAL message that ye is communicating to us through his music? That Jesus is king? Muthafucka, Jesus was a prophet that had a message—Love everyone! He was a teacher working in solidarity with and for the liberation of the oppressed. What does that mean to YOU? How do you interpret Jesus' legacy? How can we develop an enriched inner spiritual life? What role do you see yourself playing to guide people to liberation?

So now that you're a firm believer in Christ the savior, "when you get to heaven's gates, you don't have to peak over"? That might be true to Christian scripture, but that ain't true to life. What ELSE can we all be doing on our individual paths to salvation? How can we strive to reach a greater peace as a culture and as a world? Or should we just forget about liberation from the systems of oppression vis-a-vis the opium of the people and leave it "in God's hands"? foh

And he's still talking that "greatest artist, living or rested" bs. He's still making Christian-heretical statements with the Jesus parallels. (And not even one mention of the ROLLING STONE cover on the record?)

This album will not be shifting any paradigm whatsoever. Just re-affirming the same recycled banalities people have come to associate with organized religion.

And now I'm seeing Donald f***ing Trump Jr's tweet about "#JesusIsKing is the epitome of fearless creativity and “dangerous, unapproved” ideas."

DANGEROUS AND UNAPPROVED IDEAS CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO. They do no affirm it, protect it, and claim to be a victim. He's playing straight into the alt-right narrative, using the same language of victimization.

You can already hear Kanye's tone beginning to shift towards demonizing those that criticize him, as if his critics are criticizing him on the basis of his beliefs, and not his absolutely insufferable and asinine politics.

WAKE UP, MR. WEST

You’re gonna get a lot of people saying “I ain’t reading all that” knowing KTT lol

But I will say this is very well written

I agree, I always looked to Kanye for feelings of confidence and feeling like you can do anything you set your mind to.

He still has the latter, but the former has definitely trickled away

It’s sad to see, but it was bound to happen I guess

I know, had to get it off my chest, but I wasn't about to put it in the music sxn.

It's super sad to see with respect to one's favorite artist, but his real artistry and artistic drive is a thing of the past that I have to accept. It's probably a natural part of life for those that have found fulfillment outside of their art form, but he needs to get his head out of his ass.

Dude is sounding more and more like Uncle Ruckus by the god damn day. Even the wiki page is trolling Ye

Y'all Niggas need help

Ye is literally speaking against the status quo, a majority of the statements he's making ruin people's careers. Speaking against the status quo as he is, speaking against cancel culture, and dropping tiny red pills for the masses is looked down upon to the point where nobody who is a working artist can really do them without getting torn apart and written off as being unintelligent. I'm not sure what you ever mean about the alt-right in this post. I don't think he even knows enough about conservative political ideals to do anything that could be seen as "alt-right" as well as the fact that everytime he brings up Ayn Rand he says it in a very negative way lol.

Donald Trump is far from the status quo, the status quo is literally hating that guy and making all art speaking against while both sides are incredibly corrupt in and out. I think if anything at least Ye is still telling people change begins within themselves, it requries casting off society shames, it requires self education and investing in yourself. I'll admit the dude isn't super cohesive but the message is there. Dude is just literally saying that dude isn't the problem, our complacency to go back to the same world that existed before him and just be happy as long as we're on instagram and f***ing is.

I agree to a certain extent, that there are still flashes of the message presented in an intelligible way at times. I really enjoyed the Zane Lowe interview, but thought he danced around a lot of the Big Boy questions by deflecting them with his grandiose vision for a progressive, back-to-the-earth utopian vision (which I do in fact heavily f*** with).

His messaging has never been cohesive, and his impulsivity is what often creates the space for conversations to be had in the first place. Part of me rejects the "thinking before speaking" putting "the pc chlorine in the conversation" while the other half of me really respects him for it.

I think I was just expecting a little more personal growth or change from him since he's "seen the light", but he's on a better path. It's just not one that is going to result in his most thematically rich, multi-layered material and that's okay.

As far as Trump not representing the status quo. That might be true within the narrow sphere of American bipartisan politics, but that's anything but true on a global, intersectional scale when it comes to class, race, gender, etc.

The 2016 election was really about gender. Trump represented the status quo of gender rules and roles, which is why he spoke to so many "persecuted" white males. The election was about identity and how it is determined, power and how it is allotted. And Trump represents imperial, white, male concentrated capital: "The natural nationalistic order"

All of Trump’s misogynistic remarks were a calculated campaign strategy, designed to reassure voters that one of the candidates will ensure the status quo remains the same and save them from the future, stoking paranoia of a future where gender rules and roles (as well as racial hierarchies) are (god forbid) subverted and made more equitable.

Which is why I was so unnerved when ye came straight out with it and said how the MAGA hat gives him power, makes him feel more masculine, as if what america needs is more of that all too American-brand of toxic masculinity.

Disagree a lot but thanks for writing. Hopefully KTT2 will be kinder to long posts than OG KTT.

I have a indirect response and I’ll post it in my own thread when I’m ready.

im NOT reading all this

word, appreciate it. feel free to continue the conversation in here

Take the time to look into global politics, a lot of american left rhetoric is not favored by other countries in europe, africa, asia and russia.

I don't think Trump represents masculinity simply as a toxic thing but for many people just represents that being a fan of masculinity isn't a bad thing, which for many gay men in this country is something they can agree on.

Put into words everything I think about this album, and in a way I sure as hell couldn't. Love you OP.

amen

nice blog

he be talkin his s*** i guess he an a******

OP really living in his own world hate to see it

„People voted for trump because they were afraid of gender“

Off-topic: People voted for trump because hillary clinton literally laughed in the face of the women her husband raped. On live TV. Its really not that deep. She’s an awful candidate. People don’t trust her. Trump would have lost against Obama or any decent candidate.

This is asinine. You took a lot of words to say your views dont align with his anymore...thats okay. People change.

But you go on to expect his idea of Christianity to align with your idea of "true" Christianity. What is this nonsense? Its literally immature drivel

exactly, people be getting let down more by their own expectations than by anything the artist does/doesn’t do