The Kanye West Experience is a Hurricane
by Isaiah Anthony
The closer he gets to a release date, the wilder the storm grows. West’s use of media and controversy builds more and more until the cultural discourse is coated in a layer of outrageous sound-bytes and polarizing claims.
This storm, exhausting and draining, always spawns queries of ‘is this worth it? Is the resulting project, consumed apart from exterior noise, worth all the turmoil?’
Then, at the apex of West-discourse, still surrounded by nauseating narratives and storylines, there is a moment of peace to enjoy the product of the Kanye-coaster.
West’s Jesus is King IMAX film, which accompanies the release of the long-awaited Jesus is King album, is the eye of the storm.
The half-hour film, consisting of roughly a dozen clips from West-curated gospel choir performances, is a unique and engaging spectacle, assuming it can be viewed in a vacuum (spoiler: it cannot).
Directed by fashion photographer Nick Knight, every inch of the filmmaking aims to construct an aura of divinity. Wide Shots of the gospel choir with circular framing creates a feeling of claustrophobia that only serves to amplify the immense vocal power of the choir, which is something to behold blaring from IMAX speakers. Additionally, the camera almost exclusively angles upward, presenting the looming blue sky visible through a hole in the ceiling. In this way, Knight frames West’s God as the main subject of the film, with the choir sending up their praise through the upward gateway.
The film was primarily shot in the Roden Crater, an art-installation from James Turnell in Arizona. The unique structure of the venue adds to the power of the choir, its circular design seemingly projecting the signing to the heavens above.
The Jesus is King movie is a beautiful, albeit excruciatingly shallow, love letter to religion. A faith that is difficult for the audience to get on board with. Even in this hyper-religious stage of West’s career, his ego is still at the forefront of his public persona. He may have denounced the mantle of Yeezus, but that was hardly the aspect of West’s personality that the general public found most troublesome.
When it comes down to it - Kanye West does not get a free pass for detrimental behavior, rhetoric, and actions because he knows John 3:16.
Those troublesome elements, which have grown slightly less egotistical and more painfully out-of-touch and damaging in recent years, immensely nerf West’s spiritual message, which itself is riddled with problems. A prophet can be a provocateur, it's in the job description to an extent, but one must wonder God’s opinion on charging $15 for tickets to said message. Performative religion is obnoxious; exploitative religion is vile.
This reality exists in extricating opposition to the art that Kanye West produces. On the Jesus is King film, Kanye, certainly with the cinematic guidance of Knight, exhumes a level of personal subtlety that his track record indicates him incapable of achieving. On a project that West’s name is plastered all over, he takes on a wallpaper approach, acting, for the most part, as a background figure. He stays out of the frame for the first half of the film, and his first appearance is as an active observer of the choir. When Kanye takes center stage in the second to last clip, he again minimizes his presence. Beginning with West sweeping the floor of the venue following the choir’s conclusion. The lights are low and backlit, subduing West’s gargantuan presence down to a silhouette. As he sweeps, he quietly sings an altered version of ‘Street Lights’ from his album 808s and Heartbreaks (2009), changing select lyrics to better adhere to his current zealot era. A piano joins in soon after, crafting an intimate and captivating scene.
Kanye’s sweeping, meant to signify a humbling in the face of divinity, is a nice touch on West’s part, but again, it is painfully performative.
Kanye cannot change his past with the altering of a few lyrics, and based on interviews, he has not yet begun to come to terms with the truly bothersome aspects of his rhetoric, endorsements, and actions. Is he an artistic visionary? At one time, definitely, but the Jesus is King film is the result of that extraordinary vision having nothing left to say.