Kanye West has been a busy man over the last week. He kicked off his much-anticipated Yeezus tour, and he also found time to rent out a stadium to propose to his girlfriend and his daughter’s mother, Kim Kardashian. Kanye plans all of his work quite meticulously, and portrays his art to his audience in a deliberate manner. But one cause of concern for fans has been the segment in West’s show when he brings a man dressed as Jesus onto the stage.
Kanye recently explained the performance. According to hiphopdx.com:
“During a recent interview with San Francisco radio station Wild 94.9, Kanye West spoke about the significance of having Jesus portrayed at his concert.
‘I had a friend of mine that’s a pastor there as we started discussing how we wanted to deliver it,” West said.”‘My girl even asked afterwards, ‘Is that weird if Jesus comes on stage?’ They’re like, ‘No. We do plays all the time. People play Jesus. You know what’s awesome about Christianity? We’re allowed to portray God. We’re allowed to draw an image of him. We’re allowed to make movies about him. Other religions, you’re not allowed to do that. That’s what’s really awesome about Christianity. That’s one of the really awesome things.'”
Kanye basically says it’s just a form of artistic expression and it is how he interprets his relationship with God. During the interview he goes on to talk about the term “Black Jesus,” and how people never have to use the term “white Jesus.” Subtly touching on a racial religious angle, West says:
“It’s funny because you hear the term ‘Black Jesus’ all the time, but you never hear the term ‘white Jesus’… It’s just some Kanye West s***, really. The same way how Will Ferrell gets up and performs his stuff, I’m a performance artist. I’m a believer and any time the word ‘Jesus’ can be used more in our lives, I believe it’s a good thing. So, even with the title Yeezus, what I say is, ‘People want to be like Mike. I want to be like Christ.’ I keep it 5-years-old at all times. People have had all these boundaries to peoples’ opinions that hold them back from what they honestly want to create. So, the biggest thing about me having any form of portrayal of Jesus is, I wanted to do it.”
Kanye is set to go back on tour this week after having some set issues that needed to be worked out. Check the interview below.
