Kanye West: Influence of Many Generations

Introduction

Kanye West has been an influence and icon in American hip-hop culture for over a decade. His fashion style, producer skills and outspoken personality has influenced many people for generations to come. Kanye started off his career as a producer, he produced music for the likes of major artists such as Jay-Z, at first many people in the music industry didn’t even think Kanye had a chance to become a figure in hip-hop. However, his hard work and persistence paid off. Some people view Kanye as a negative influence for most people because of his outspoken personality. “Kanye has never shied away from bringing religion into his art, Sunday Service is a new dawn” (Nbcnews). This explains that Kanye is using his own type of style to fit into the Christian faith, it's interesting that he’s not targeting to everyone but Christians only. Before this came to the public eye, there were Sunday services rehearsals that were done in private and he would invite choirs and all these celebrities.

Kanye West's Journey in Hip-Hop

But now it's out for everyone it's like a tour, traveling from city to city and he’s selling his line of holy spirit clothing for $200 and upward. People should ask themselves several questions before they actually take the Sunday Service serious. Christianity isn’t just for one group of people its supposed to be available to everyone, there shouldn’t really be a target audience or like a targeted genre. I’ll be using four-course readings, which are Selling Spirituality by Carrette King, The Market of God by Cox, the film what would Jesus buy and lastly, Being Consumed by Lofton. I’ll connect and analyze with the “Kanye Sunday Service”. Lofton’s “Consuming Religion” discussion about the Kardashians and Goldman Sachs to reveal the connection of religion and popular culture. Lofton argues that religion is the only way towards a better future, in some cases we’re all religious because everyone has to live in the modern world. Which are organized logics, institutions and sometimes of feelings that are labeled religious, such as being spiritual. In Selling Spirituality, Carrette and King believes it's changing and shifting and there’s no essence or definitive meaning to terms like spirituality or religion.

Harvey Cox, discussed in the Market of God, how our world has been control by business theology of supply and demand. Cox concludes that “The Market system is not part of nature. We as human beings constructed it, and we can renovate, dismantle, or transform it if we want to.’’ Cox believes that the Market has become divine and even achieved human status will come through the form of corporation. The Western culture has shifted traditional practices and religion into a method of treating the western view of self and society as a whole. We have culturally appropriated practices like yoga for them to align with our views on life and shift, mindfulness and related practices are no longer associated with the religion we believe in. “ Spirituality is not only a new form of socialization, but also becomes a new means of thought control, carried into ever wider spheres of life for a new generation of innocent consumers” ( Selling Spirituality ). I believe that religion has been taken over capitalism and have lost the ability to frame our ideas in any other way. Spirituality, what sounds like religious conviction now lives in service of consumerism, we’ve lost our souls, while worshipping materialistic things and we don’t even realize that. If we look at today’s society the world seems to have the most powerful religion than Christianity, Judaism and Islam, rather its the people who worship money. The banks are becoming bigger than worship places, the numbers of people that are attending worship places are decreasing every year, however whenever you go to the bank its always full of people in the space. “ Religion provides a meaning for life, it provides authority figures, and most important for Durkheim, it reinforces the morals and social norms held collectively by all within society” ( Binge Religion ). Religion is the only thing that gives a rationalization for manners, the only thing that gives morals their character. Religion is the only guidance we have in this world to the purpose of our existence. Through religion, we know why we’re here, where we came from, what happens after death and what is needed from us. There’s principles for everything, also reasoning for things that we would want to do, but it's prohibited. Without religion, the universe would be total blindness and destructions everywhere in the world.

Kanye West's Religious Influences

Kanye has been gaining a lot attraction in the public, in the world period with his church services. It’s actually dangerous on whats his doing, some will say at least he’s spreading the gospel in his own way and the gospel is being heard, also people are being saved. According to the article “ Kanye West’s Sunday Service Taught Me About Grace’’ by Curtis Yee, most of the services have been invite only and attendees are usually asked sign non-disclosure agreements, which isn’t a christian way. The attendees aren’t allowed to talk about the event to other people, it seems to me like it's some type of cult. However there’s also a dress code for both attendees and the choir, GQ writes that “ the show’s producer gives the choir a Yeezy designed outfit either a few days before the week’s service or just before’’. It’s serious when a high profile celebrity comes up with a new form of religion, at first the Sunday Service were invites only, however he started to being the Sunday Service to churches, even though many christians aren’t liking this idea however its really difficult to deny a popular celebrity. People are starting to attend church just to see Kanye, even atheists are attending Sunday Service. This is starting to become more than a Christian faith, the service features gospel remixes of classic songs of different genres and also straight char gospel tunes. Anyone that remixes religious gospel, turning in into more modern music should be careful on how you put the music out there. Its also weird how people are actually believing that Kanye saved them, helped them to become a better christian because of his music. Kanye’s wife Kim described the worship events as a “ healing experience’’ or to “start off your week.’’ I truly cant stop assuming that the services were more about self promotion than sincerity and he’s commodifying the church experience for profit and being top trends on social media. According to the film’s subject, Reverend Billy, whose real name is Bill Talen. He’s on a mission to fight what he calls the “shopocalypse,’’ the buying Americans do in every holiday, he uses church’s gospel choir to deliver their message to the public, not to shop a lot during holiday sessions. Reverend Billy used Christian gospels to deliver his songs, however he made it on his own way, his using religion to fit into people’s lives. This is similar to the Kanye West situation, there are a lot of songs influence the way people think and looks at society, most of his songs he talks about how he formed his own belief and he’ll control it just like how controls it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Kanye West wants to spend a lot of money to organize his choir to perform, what confused me is that does a person really needs a lot of money to spend on a perform to make the public feel spiritual during the event. Few months ago, Kanye wore a red hat, which he brought to a black choir to perform and the same goes for the Jesus Yeezus hoodies he brought to the Coachella. He sold to fans for the performance, which cost more than $150 for a sweater with a picture of black Jesus. Kanye is on the corner of becoming a powerful person in the Christian faith, if you’re a fan of Kanye and his music, you’re probably believing whatever you want to believe in order to listen to Kanye songs in peace.  

Works Cited

1. NBC News. 'Kanye West's Sunday Service is a New Dawn.' NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/kanye-west-s-sunday-service-new-dawn-n1042561

2. Carrette, Jeremy R., and Richard King. 'Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion.' Routledge, 2014.

3. Cox, Harvey. 'The Market as God.' Harvard University Press, 2016.

4. 'What Would Jesus Buy?' Directed by Rob VanAlkemade. 2007.

5. Lofton, Kathryn. 'Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire.' Oxford University Press, 2008.

6. 'Binge Religion.' 'Durkheim Religion Quotes: Top 10 Famous Quotes About Durkheim Religion.' Binge Religion. https://binge.co/quotes/durkheim-religion

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7. Yee, Curtis. 'Kanye West's Sunday Service Taught Me About Grace.' Relevant Magazine. https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/music/kanye-wests-sunday-service-taught-me-about-grace/