BBG made an intriguing post asking all the CHH fans about their thoughts on JIK, I thought it was interesting how well-received JIK has been for the Christian community. Meanwhile, so many core Kanye fans and hip-hop fans have been disappointed, calling this the worst album in his discography. For the most part I agree, just because of how high of a standard and bar Ye has set for himself, but I feel like it’s too early to say that. It hasn’t even been a whole week yet and we’re already jumping.

Variety’s review summed it up very very well:

" The album is West’s second-shortest, his least percussive, and his first to feature absolutely no swearing. It’s also not very good. But the degree to which it’s still worth listening to depends entirely on your relationship to Kanye.
Kanye used to pull off similar miracles all the time. But its presence here almost diminishes the rest of the album, serving as a reminder of how good Kanye once was, and how much we’ve been forced to grade his new music on a curve."

The presence of the JIK film really increased expectations for the album. The last time Ye dropped a supplementary film for an album was MBDTF, the greatest album of the decade and his greatest album ever. Many thought this was going to be a grand Christian and musical reinvention for Kanye, and to be honest so did I. The Yandhi leaks were so fire, and the original version of Jesus Is King that I heard at the Chicago listening session was so fucking fire!!! I believe the over-Christianization of JIK is what led to its own downfall.

I want to start this off by saying I am a Christian, and I have been my whole life. I don’t believe that swearing makes you less Christian. I can understand how saying something like “Go to hell” can have some sinful connotations, but me saying “Damn” or “Fuck” doesn’t make me a non-Christian.

In the same way, Kanye’s lack of swearing does not make him more Christian, and his lack of omission of the N word does not make him more Christian. Kanye West, a black man, is not less Christian for saying the N word. In the context that he uses it, it is a word of black empowerment, and him removing the N word from all of the JIK brings, to some extent, the implication that the N word is anti-Christian.

I mean, I love music for sure, but I love Kanye just as much and understand where he's coming from. But I don’t think that him getting rid of swear words strengthens his message of Christianity; if anything, the passion behind explicit language can help amplify how emotionally charged he is through Christianity. Instead, we are greeted with corny lyrics like, “Closed on Sunday, you're my Chick-fil-A”.

I will never deny that Kanye is a musical genius and is the greatest artist of all time, I will stand by that forever, but I've accepted that he's no longer in his prime, and I’m not crazy hype for his music anymore.

Kanye's applying himself in other fields like fashion and architecture and the church, and I respect that cause that's what he has to do to maintain his relevance and longevity. As long as he's doing what makes him happy and will prolong his happiness, then it just comes down to him putting himself before us, and I can’t be mad about that. Like he literally said in his interview the other day that music is his job now. It's clear that he's not passionate for it anymore, he's focused on other endeavors and now he needs to prioritize being a father. He simply doesn’t care about music like that anymore, and normally I'd be mad or frustrated about that for any other artist, people change and evolve and you just gotta come to acceptance with the situation. But Kanye literally has been such a big influence on me, like he changed my life and the trajectory of my creative prowess for the rest of my life. I can’t be mad at what he does at this point, without him I literally would not be Izeezus. He's done so much for hip-hop and the entire music realm as a whole, he doesn't owe us anything anymore.

I enjoyed the 808 vibes on the verse in Chick-Fil-A, but him yelling it at the end of the song is so cringy. I feel that if Kanye really wants this Christian shit to pop off, he needs to tap more into the element displayed in On God. This is a more crisp version of what I said on my Discord server Izeezuscord (shoutout to anyone who came from there):

On God is the energy that Kanye needs to stay on if he wants his Christian wave to pop off. It’s the ultimate balance of creativity and accessibility. I know y'all are tired of me using those two words, but Christian lyrics, combined with Kanye's confidence, on a Pi'erre Bourne beat!? I never thought I that I would be calling Pi’erre Bourne a Christian hip-hop artist. This could essential be the blueprint for Christian hip-hop for the next few years, and that’s why this is gonna be influential in my opinion.

While we can’t call JIK an excellent hip-hop album, I believe this has the potential to set the precedent for what Christian hip-hop could be. JIK may very well revolutionize what is considered Christian hip-hop, cause the CHH scene is so dry. So much of CHH sounds the same. The average hiphophead isn’t thinking of Christian rap when someone says “What is hip-hop?” They’d think of the greats like 2Pac or Jay, or even the new school like Uzi or Travis Scott. No one’s thinking of Lecrae in that conversation; sorry CHH fans but it’s just the truth. Perhaps Kanye can change this, perhaps Kanye can make CHH cool? We’ll have to see how all of this plays out.

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Something that my brother and I were talking about was whether the whole Christian wave is genuine, or if Kanye is just doing this to win back everyone he lost following the Trump cosign. I feel like it's a bit of both, but some are arguing that Kanye is becoming even more delusional with his whole Christianity shit now. Like, I’m not going to tell my coworkers that they’re not allowed to have premarital sex when we’re creating, cause that’s not something that I should be allowed to control.

And I’m definitely not gonna tell my daughter she can’t wear makeup or crop tops cause it's “anti-Christian”. That's just weird asf and Kanye is losing himself and sight of himself in the first thing that he's deeply immersed in rn.

All of the Yandhi leaks were so much more fire than JIK, and the film he dropped was an absolute flop lol. I'm happy that he's found faith in Christ but he doesn't know how to spread these vibes yet. And that's what I disagree with; Kanye needs to learn how to promote Christianity without enforcing it on people, and hopefully this is something he learns with over time. Saying that this or that is “anti-Christian” isn’t gonna convince anyone to become a convert. Everything we do is valid to some extent, and instead of highlighting what wrongs someone is doing, instead Kanye should showcase the rights that Christianity can offer.

My favorite songs from this album were On God, Follow God, Everything We Need, Water, God Is, Hands On and Use This Gospel. Honestly, this album isn’t even terrible terrible like everyone’s making it out to be. The album just feels very empty, cause we’re so used to greatness from Kanye. Yandhi songs like Hurricane, Last Name, Sky City and OG Water had me so excited for this album. OG Selah was so fucking fire, if you want it message me and I’ll send it to you.

Kanye is still trash for cosigning Donald Trump, I'm never going to defend or justify that. The biggest mistake Kanye made was getting himself into politics. Like, there's a way to talk about your mental blocks without talking about literal actual slavery. And his attempt to justify that by dropping this Christian-ass album doesn’t sit right with me. The film sucked too, I’m fortunate that I was able to see it for free at the listening session, but I would not pay an IMAX ticket to watch a 35 minute film of Sunday Service covering a bunch of songs. My problem with Jesus Is King is that in the process of trying to convey a Christian message, Kanye West lost the ability to deliver a cohesive album. We’re too used to Kanye delivering executing stellar music, but we simply can’t hold him to that standard anymore. Even when he was going through a lot of mental health shit last year, Kanye was still able to curate meaningful music like Ghost Town.

But times are changing and we need to adapt to what reality is. Kanye is happy, that’s what matters; but we can’t expect him to deliver legendary music like he’s known to, he has expanded himself to different horizons and music is not his #1 passion anymore. He has done so much for hip-hop and he owes us nothing, so perhaps we should not expect timeless greatness from Kanye anymore. There’s nothing wrong with having different interests, what Kanye will have to face is his core music fanbase turning on him cause he doesn’t care about music anymore. I won’t do that, cause like I said before, I owe Kanye so much and he’s allowed to do whatever he wants. But these next few months are going to be interesting as Kanye will continue to be the most polarizing, controversial artist of all time.