I just so happened to be in Houston and heard the Kanye was performing bringing his Sunday Service to Lakewood. So I tried to get tickets, but they went immediately. Thankfully my friend’s sister got tickets she couldn’t use.
What stuck me about this concert was how multi-faceted it was. The Sunday Service Collective was headed by a Kirk Franklin-like conductor named Jason White. Learn how it all started here.
There were your traditional offenders, your hymnal songs with the high notes hit by the collective hit made me levitate. I felt holy! You also had the instrumental baptist vibe, backed up by kanye’s signature sound. When you bring a grammy award winning producer into the pulpit, he’s gonna set it off. Not to mention the gospel remixes they did to Destiny Child’s Say My Name in addition to Kanye’s own music. so you're listening to songs you may have made love to or turned up to, with the same rhythm you're used to. that song still brings back memories, even though it's remixed. so you'll bring that same energy to church now.
At one point, you could hear kanye had the sounds to make a house praise mix. with his signature synths mixed in.
The only disappointing part was when they played jesus walks and didn't give it that umph they gave to other songs. they started 30 min late, and the sunday service collective was on for an hour before kanye came out, and kanye was out for an hour. the facility is the old rockets stadium that seats 16,000 people, and it was packed for kanye's show. I was also sad there was no light installation from James Turrell but I think the scale of the production didn't really enable it.
Kanye’s been escalating the scale of this event, going as far as recording a short film with limited screening in IMAX theaters. I thought it was a scarce event, but it was livestreamed!
I observed hundreds of people decked out from head to toe in kanye merch. people follow his aesthetic. people put him on a pedestal. he puts himself on a pedestal. "i just checked my following list and you mofos owe me." He has an army of people following in his footsteps, but he still wants more. Not sure if he’ll ever be satisfied.
james turrell light installation
kanye west st pablo tour