On Tuesday’s episode of “The Michael Knowles Show,” Knowles talked about Kanye West, who has now rooted his identity in God, and compared him with Mitt Romney, who has been hiding behind an anonymous Twitter account under the pseudonym Pierre Delecto. Video and partial transcript below:
While Mitt Romney is running in the direction of [his anonymous Twitter account], in the direction of that anonymity and those petty snipes, Kanye West is running in exactly the other direction. [West] apparently nearly quit rap when he had this conversion experience to Christianity. There is a friend of his, Adam Tyson, who is the head pastor of the Placerita Bible Church, apparently knows Kanye West, and Kanye came to him and said, I don’t even want to rap anymore, and Adam Tyson, I guess, talked him out of that. But that’s how serious, that’s how profound Kanye’s conversion or reversion experience.
TYSON: One time he told me that he wasn’t going to rap. I said, Why not? He said, Well that’s the Devil’s music. And I said, Hey man, rap is a genre. You can rap for God.
I think he’s already thinking about a little bit. But I just definitely said, Hey bro, I think you need to use your talents that God’s given you and use that platform for God. So I think he was already thinking about it. I’m not going to take any credit for that, but I definitely was pushing him hard in that direction.
In fact, I asked him, I’m like, “Hey man have you heard of Lecrae?” He’s like, “No.” “You heard of Flame?” “Nope.” “Tedashii?” “No.” “Trip Lee?” “Nope.” He hadn’t heard of any of those guys. I mean, I’m sure he’s heard of them now, I was going to try and connect him with some of those guys, but he kind of likes doing his own thing, man. He just does what he does, and all I’m trying to do is help him be rooted and grounded in God’s word.
Now, probably that head pastor should have just told him not to rap because rap is the Devil’s music, so I think he got that one wrong. But even if he didn’t, this guy — he sounds like a really nice, like, cool pastor guy. So whatever, that’s fine. Hopefully, Kanye’s new album will be good and to give glory to God and try to elevate the culture in some way.
But Kanye was right, and this pastor was largely wrong, I think, on the question. Kanye appears to be experiencing a submission of the ego or a restraining of the ego, and for somebody like Kanye West – on the one hand, that’s got to be kind of easy because he’s got ample ego to restrain, but on the other hand, really hard. He’s the top of the heap; he’s like the biggest celebrity in the world other than Donald Trump, and so he’s getting all of these plaudits, all of these accolades. For anybody, that’s very difficult. [Plus], he’s a hip hop star, he’s a rap star, and rap is the most boastful genre of music probably. So, it is very difficult, and yet he awoke to it. He said, Oh, none of this stuff is making me happy. I’ll just quit rap music. Who cares?
That’s actually the right attitude. Now, if he can reach more people by rapping and sort of elevate the culture, like fine, I guess that’s okay. But I’m actually more with Kanye’s first impulse here — I think it’s terrific that he had that idea, “Yeah, this is bad, I’ll do something else.” Those are two choices that we have in the culture.
It does come down to identity. What it comes down to is where you find your identity. When God is asked in the Bible, “Who are you?” He says, “I am that I am.” True in the Old Testament; true in the New Testament. Moses says to God, “Who shall I tell them you are?” And He says, “Tell them I am that I am.” Christ says in the Gospels, “Before Abraham was, I am.” I am the essence of being, and sane cultures root their identity in God. It’s not even that difficult to understand that concept because these things of this world are fleeting. If I root my identity in having a podcast, and then someday I lose my podcast, I’ve lost my identity. If I root my identity in having a nice Bushy head of brown hair, then one day I lose my hair, my hair turns gray. I lose my identity.
If you root your identity and temporal things, you’re going to lose it eventually. If you root your identity in permanent things, you won’t. And the permanent thing, the essence of being, is God himself. So that’s what you have to do. When you don’t do that, you are left with a pathetic question. And the pathetic question is, who am I? This is why you see people losing their mind in identity politics, because they’re grasping for something that’s bigger than them — something that will give them some sort of permanence. That might be racial solidarity, or sexual solidarity, or class solidarity, but those things don’t give permanence either, because even those are social creatures, even those are things that change, even those are things of this world that will pass away.
Very difficult time to live in. When Kanye West has greater clarity about the culture, and about religion, and about identity itself than the 2012 Republican nominee for president. It’s a very difficult time for the culture when the 2012 Republican nominee for president has more in common with a U.K. transgender model than he does with a sort of stable person — a very stable genius, you might say — those are the times we’re living in.
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