![]() ![]() I'm tryna keep my faith/ But I'm looking for more/ Somewhere I can feel safe/ And end my holy war, sings The-Dream, the last word of each line punctuated by the swelling choir. With Kelly Price, The-Dream, Chance the Rapper, Kirk Franklin, Fonzworth Bentley, a gospel choir, and a viral preaching toddler supporting him, he floats through “Ultralight Beam.” It’s a slow march towards the song’s heavens-high conclusion, where he arrives at renewed faith, even if it doesn’t comes to him as readily as it did a decade ago velvety croaks and bright horns, tempering the pace of the song’s verses and multiple hooks, mirror that journey. And sometimes it’s hard.įor TLOP’s opening five minutes and for the fiery, emotional tone they set, Kanye reached across epochs of contemporary black music to assemble an unlikely crew. He has made fans, lost fans, and alienated people. He has changed his personal style, and ours. He has tweeted, deleted, and tweeted again. ![]() ![]() He has beefed with two presidents and a pop star and, as of this writing, made peace with two of the three. He has recorded albums and gone on tour, given interviews, fought with paparazzi. ![]() He has launched a creative agency, invented a seven-screen cinema technology, learned a lot about lamps. He has taken a couple of sneaker designs and turned them into bona fide fashion collections. Since we’ve known him, Kanye has lost a parent and gained a family. But the world into which he released his seventh album, The Life of Pablo, on Saturday night is markedly different from the one that first received him in 2004. “Jesus Walks,” his first public declaration of existential conviction, bewildered audiences by making his most private conversations-with himself, with God-public. In the 12 years that separate his first album, The College Dropout, from his latest, a lot has happened to both test and fortify Kanye’s faith. It has been clear for some time that Kanye West has faith in droves it has, alongside other characteristics of his, guided the great-grandson of ex-slaves in making it this far. Faith, as distinct from religion, is a beautiful and singularly human quality I cannot fathom having the kind of confidence in the universe it requires. To not treat the need for something bigger than you as though it’s a weakness seems, to me, like a strength in itself. I’ve long considered my own lack of faith a personal deficit and it has led me to a twin envy and admiration of people who can surrender to the unseeable-old ladies who stand guard outside storefront churches on Sunday afternoons cousins who choose to honor their beliefs by wearing hijabs Buddhist friends who find peace through a quiet higher power. It can be difficult enough to accept the existence of things we witness daily, let alone things we know we never will. "But if you just focus on the work and you don't let those people sidetrack you, some day when you get where you're going, you'll look around and you will know that it was you and the people who love you who put you there and that will be the greatest feeling in the world.Many of us only believe in God when it’s convenient. "I want to say to all the young women out there, there are going to be people along the way who try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments and your fame," she pointedly says during her Album of the Year acceptance speech, plainly referring to West's "Famous" lyrics. TLOP is critically acclaimed, but disjointed, and the rapper will make several more edits in the coming weeks, revising the work already on streaming sites, which in and of itself, is widely discussed as an innovation in album creation. The album also features references to seeing a psychiatrist on "No More Parties in L.A.," as well as distrust and paranoia, when, on "Wolves," the rapper suggests that he and his wife are "surrounded by the f**kin' wolves." Tour Dates, All Tickets Will Be RefundedĪnd as we give West the time he needs to rest and recuperate, we have to reflect on the non-stop 2016 - from the album rollout, to the fashion shows, to the tour and everything in between - that preceded the breakdown. RELATED: Kanye West Cancels Rest of Saint Pablo U.S. His mother passed away this time of year. And then the Paris incident also threw him for a big loop. He has a lot going on: multiple fashion lines, the tour, his business, being a father. "There have been signs recently of him just overwhelmed. He just broke," a separate source close to the family tells ET of why West came apart. "It was a combination of a lot of issues: stress, anxiety, paranoia. The troubling news follows a year that has at times been difficult for West, from his re-falling out and very public drama with Taylor Swift, to the rapper's wife, Kim Kardashian West, taking time away from public life to recover after being robbed at gunpoint in Paris last month. ![]()
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