Kanye West is a rapper who has become known as of late for being one of the few people in the entertainment industry who is not afraid to be open about his conservative Christian views. Now, he is speaking out about record labels forcing their artists to sign contracts that prohibit them from saying the word “Jesus” in their music.
Artists Given No Choice
At his Sunday Service right before the Super Bowl, West said that artists are sometimes faced with no choice but “selling their souls” to score a major label deal.
“God is using us to show off, to show God is better than the devil,” West said of how successful his own Christian music has been. “The devil took all the producers, the musicians, the designers. He moved us all out to Hollywood, moved us all out to New York. Chasing gold statues. Literally signing a contract and selling our souls.”
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“The[y] got contracts out there that say ‘you can’t say Jesus,'” West added. “When we were working on this album, people were coming to the studio just to say ‘Jesus’ as loud as they wanted to. You can say ‘Jesus’ in ‘Ye studio.”
Christian Rapper Bizzle Agrees
The Christian rapper Bizzle responded to this with lyrics from one of his own songs in which he makes a similar claim.
“I told ’em I am not for sale and won’t promote evil; they told me I can give you murder, but no Jesus; the devil’s in this game handpicking your leaders; that’s why you get 100 dope boys and no preachers,” Bizzle can be heard rapping in his song titled, “Lit Lit.”
West’s Pastor Inspired Him To Rap About God
West’s Pastor Adam Tyson said he had encouraged him to start rapping about Christ when the rapper told him he wanted to quit the genre altogether.
“One time, he told me that he wasn’t going to rap,” Tyson told the Apologia Studios podcast. “I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘That’s the devil’s music.’ I said, ‘Hey, man. Rap is a genre. You can rap for God.’ I think he was already thinking about it a little bit, but I definitely said, ‘Hey, bro, I think you need to use your talents that God’s given you and use that platform for God.'”
Related: Kanye West’s Sunday Service Compels ‘Over 1,000’ To Commit Their Lives To Jesus Christ
Given how liberal and secular the entertainment industry has become, it’s not surprising that some record labels are forcing artists to keep Jesus out of their work. We applaud West for continuing to risk his career in the closed-minded entertainment industry by using his songs to spread the word of God.
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