Kanye West has made a call for America to come back to God, as he announced his big plans to evangelise youth through his new music.
The popular rapper has been busy of late, performing his 'Sunday Service' event for inmates in a Texas prison, as well as joining megachurch Pastor Joel Osteen at his Lakewood Church last weekend. West declared that he has become a servant of Jesus, and warned agents of the devil that "no weapon formed against me shall prosper".
West said in a discussion with Osteen in front of 17,000 congregants at Lakewood Church's 11 a.m. service: "Every time I stand up, I feel that I'm standing up and drawing a line in the sand and saying, 'I'm here in service to God and no weapon formed against me shall prosper'."
The musician explained to Lakewood Church that he himself had been raised in the church by his mother and father, and through that he learned the fear of God. He went on to say that he now hopes that he can raise his own children in the same way with his wife, Kim Kardashian.
He said, "As I now have a family. I'm 42 years old, married for five years, there is a latent responsibility for me to become more like my mother, who's gone to Heaven, and more like my father, who's working and building a water purification system in the DR. You know with rappers there's so many things that we've done to maintain the idea of coolness. You know we have our own daughters and we'd still be rapping about trying to hook up with somebody daughter."
He added, "A lot of times when you are in service to fame, money, manpower, you start to feel like Satan is the most powerful. And you start to feel like if you service God that in life it means you will not prosper. And the only way to prosper is in service to fame. You know it's like the devil stole all the good producers, the devil stole all the good musicians, all the good artists, all the good designers, all the good business people and said you got to come over and work for me. And now the trend, the shift is going to change.
With a smile, he added: "Jesus has won the victory. Because now, now I told you about my arrogance and cockiness already, now the greatest artist that God has ever created is now working for Him."
Pastor Osteen went on to ask if the rapper had any words of advice to his younger self that could have helped him. However, West answered that he thought there was nothing he could say to reach out to his younger self, but that has led him to believe that it was now best to work through his music to reach the younger generation. His hope now was to evangelise the youth of today through his new music.
West said, "It's nothing I could say to the younger Kanye through words. I could speak to the younger Kanye through music ... so this music gon' come every month. We dropping that heat. We in the studio. God is strengthening our hands. We have writers, we have producers, we're taking all the most fire producers and bringing them back to God. All the best voices, all the best dancers for us to see that it's through Christ."
The 42-year-old born again Christian explained that he felt a turning point in his life came in 2016 after having a mental breakdown following a growing addiction to painkillers, and his wife suffering a frightening robbery at that time.
He said, "I know that God has been calling me for a long time. The devil's been distracting me for a long time. When I was in my lowest point, God was there with me and sent me visions and inspiring me. I remember sitting in the hospital at UCLA after having a mental breakdown. There's documentations of me drawing a church. ... Even after that I made, went and made the Life of Pablo album. I said this is a gospel album.
"I didn't know how to totally make a gospel album and Christians that were around were too, I would say, beaten into submission by society and not speak up and profess the Gospel to me because I was a superstar. But the only superstar is Jesus."
West recently released his first faith-based album, Jesus Is King, which made history on Billboard's Hot Christian Songs and Hot Gospel Songs charts.
He went on to tell Osteen that he felt it was vital that Christians work to counter the influence of media on the younger generation today, and he said that he hoped to contribute to that through his music.
West said, "That's why I say 'Closed on Sunday' is the hardest record ever made. It's hard as the NWA record because it's talking about protecting your kids from the indoctrination of the media. Thousands and thousands of images that are fed to children by the age of six or seven. And within those images, there are images mixed in that as parents we don't know about, purposely mixed in to lower the kid's superpower and esteem so that they can be more susceptible to consumption and feel that they need to consume and become part of the robotic numeric system that controls so much of the media."
