Kanye condones Kardashian-Jenner family’s cultural appropriation
Originally published in The Hunting News; November 17, 2019
The Kardashian Jenner’s are no strangers to appropriating culture for monetary gain. Everything from using hip-hop legends likenesses on merch to naming a shapewear brand after a culturally significant garb. Now with the release of his latest album, Jesus is King, Kanye West has finally joined the family business.
Like so many televangelists before him, Kanye has found profit in the sale of Christianity. He’s taken the parts of Christianity he deems profitable and broken them up into easily consumable pieces and presented them without context, save for how they relate to himself, his image, and his politics. Since my first co-op focused on marketing and I’m currently taking a religion class with Professor Liz Bucar on cultural appropriation, it’s hard to not see this as a money grab.
Let’s start with the album itself. Six years after the release of Yeezus, which included a track titled “I Am A God,” Kanye has come back to religious themes. This time instead of exalting and praising himself he’s decided to focus that energy toward his love of Christ. Sort of. The opening track features a gospel choir occasionally joined by Kanye, and the lyrics are pretty standard gospel music. But in the second track “Selah,” he compares himself to biblical figures and justifies yelling at his employee because of his faith. If you can hear it over his yelling, he even cheers himself on using his own self appointed nickname of Yeezus (Y’know like Jesus but the Kanye version). It all kind of goes downhill from there.
The fifth track “On God” is really where the politics ramp up. The line “he’s the new commander in chief” followed by “that’s on God” could be taken as reverence for Kanye’s new found faith, but given his outspoken support of the President this line’s probably doing double duty. Later in the song Kanye blames the IRS for wanting “50 plus our tithe,” implying the government is preventing him from giving to the church.
The album has some songs asking for forgiveness, while others make clear he intends to continue to live his life in pretty much the same way as always, minus some sex, drugs, and violence. At the end I’m left wondering, what does any of this have to do with being a Christian? It seems like faith is being used to scam people out of their money and then use that money to maintain the celebrity lifestyle.
Looking at Kanye’s official site the first thing you notice is the prices: $60 for a T-shirt and $250 for a sweatshirt. Half the merch is covered in strangely cropped images of angels, crosses, Jesus, and saints. But out of context the customer doesn’t know anything about their religious meanings. A clear case of Christian aesthetics and imagery appropriated and branded by Kanye West for profit.
To be sure, Kanye has done something different than his Kardashian/Jenner family members. He hasn’t pulled elements from minority groups and turned them into commodities, instead he’s taken from the dominant religion of the west. This does not mean it is without problems. Christianity has been used in the past to justify wars, oppression, and hostile invasions. Now in the hands of Kanye, it’s used to justify his own wealth and money making operations.
A man who once said that he could never be profitable rapping about Jesus has found a way to do so. But this album is not about Jesus. It is about Kanye West. He has pulled the sounds and imagery of Christianity to create a multi-faceted product launch including overpriced merchandise, an Imax movie experience, and a new concert tour presented as a traveling religious service. All in the name of his faith with the end goal of making Kanye richer.
Kanye was someone who used to rail against the oppression of capitalism on Black communities that “make us hate ourself and love they wealth.” Since joining with arguably the most commodified family in the world, Kanye has forgotten his roots in favor of monetary gain. Even if it means selling his faith to any and all who will buy it.
