![]() Neither God nor Kanye’s mom provides a sense of direction here.Īt various intervals throughout his career, Kanye has tried (and, for the most part, failed) to reconcile the secular and the sanctified. The song’s blend of platoon-march chants and gospel choir seemed to activate the lyrics, which described why he was willing to risk throwing his rap career away to simply say that he’d been saved.“Donda,” by contrast, is music without an animating principle, divine or otherwise: the album lacks both the uplifting spirit of gospel and the worldly soul of rap. “I ain’t here to argue about His facial features / Or here to convert atheists into believers,” he rapped on the 2004 track. The sense of purpose that powered “Jesus Walks”-one with a panoramic view of theology that included empathy for the souls of strippers, hustlers, drug dealers, and killers-is missing. Kanye does not abide by his mother’s philosophy on his tenth solo studio album, “Donda,” a Christian-rap album that is pitifully short on meaningful gestures of conviction or convincing expressions of what it feels like to be in His embrace. ![]() To Donda West, the hit wasn’t just the manifestation of a blessing but a symbol of his work ethic and vision: “To tell someone they must believe in God is not nearly as effective as believing in God yourself and having them see what results from your faith.” “This was everything Kanye had worked for finally coming together,” she wrote. ![]() She wrote of Kanye as divinely favored and “Jesus Walks,” his unlikely 2004 single, as a song with a purpose. In her 2007 book, “ Raising Kanye,” the late Donda West devoted an entire chapter to the song “Jesus Walks” and the story of how her son inherited his Christianity.
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