Lecrae is a sell-out Christian artist who gave up everything to become more like Kanye West. In a surprising move of God, Kanye West then surrendered everything to become more like Jesus. This has left many people – who largely have already looked at Lecrae as a sell-out – to wonder what he thinks about Kanye West becoming a better version of what Lecrae only used to be.
Lecrae gained enough popularity on the Christian hip-hop circuit that upon his first dose of fame, immediately announced he didn’t want to be considered a Christian hip-hop artist but only be considered a hip-hop artist who happens to be a Christian. In other words, Lecrae stopped producing explicitly Christian lyrics in order to appeal to godless heathens in the hip-hop industry and maintain broad-spread appeal to a widely secular fan base.
In every way, Lecrae is the opposite of Kanye West.
Lecrae sold out Jesus for the sake of fame. West sold out fame for the sake of Jesus.
Lecrae traded Christian music for a successful hip-hop career. Kanye traded a successful hip-hop career for Christian music.
Lecrae has become increasingly secular and worldly as he walked away from Jesus and toward secular hip-hop. Kanye has done the opposite.
Lecrae, the “reigning king of Christian hip-hop” who many Christians feel betrayed us in order to sit with godless pagans and ‘spit’ profanity and live the bling-bling lifestyle, was dethroned in a single day by the man who once embodied the lascivious and godless lifestyle that Lecrae now covets.
There’s irony in that.
The differences between Kanye and Lecrae in regard to worldview is also astonishingly polar. Lecrae is a Democrat who supported pro-abortion Stacey Abrams for governor of Georgia. Lecrae has announced his “divorce” from “white evangelicalism” on largely political grounds, while Kanye is being discipled by evangelicals who happen to be white (and conservative). Lecrae is a race-baiter, and Kanye doesn’t seem to care what anybody’s skin color is. Lecrae is surrounding himself with profane pot-smoking drug addicts, while Kanye has stopped using profanity and forbade substances in his studios. While Kanye supports the right of all people to defend themselves, Lecrae is advocating for gun control.
While Kanye clearly has a long way to go in his discipleship, Lecrae has supposedly been a Christian for a long time, and yet recently endorsed The Shack and called it “dope.” While Kanye is being discipled by Calvinist Baptists, Lecrae is picking up honorary degrees from the same institutions that educated TD Jakes and Myles Munroe.
The two hip-hop artists couldn’t have more contrast. Lecrae’s net worth is less than a medium-sized single-family home’s value in San Francisco (2 million), and Kanye’s net worth is somewhere between a quarter-billion and 3 billion dollars. Lecrae has desperately wanted to give up Jesus to be like Kanye. Kanye is giving up being Kanye to be like Jesus.
In an interview for Billboard Magazine, Lecrae said a few complimentary (but forced and restrained) things about Kanye’s album, but also “cast shade” upon the man who squarely knocked him off his Christian hip-hop throne on his first attempt.
Lecrae said that Kanye’s Jesus is King album is not his favorite album from Kanye musically. Apparently, Lecrae favors Kayne’s profane and blasphemous music more. He did acknowledge it was his favorite album of Kanye in terms of content, however. Fans must disagree on the music aspect, however, because Jesus is King will likely debut at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 (it will be Kanye’s 9th #1 album debut). In doing so, Kanye will match Eminem for the record of #1 debuts in a row. It opened in the first weekend alone with 275 thousand sales.
Lecrae’s last album, Let the Trap Say Amen, debuted at #49 on the Top 200 Billboard Charts and sold only 11 thousand albums in the first week. Maybe Lecrae isn’t exactly the best judge of what is and what is not quality music.
Lecrae had the following disparaging line about why people enjoy Kanye’s work…
“Often people can’t imagine people from the hip-hop community finding Christ. We see this very Americanized Western Jesus and not a Middle Eastern man who can relate to the struggles that usually affect us. So, this could be an opportunity for more people to see we love Jesus and 808s, fashion, and contribute to culture. People could see themselves in Kanye and therefore see themselves as Christ followers.”
For Lecrae, who is a racialist and Cultural Marxist who sees the world through the lens of color, Kanye’s success must be in his blackness. In reality, the greatest demographic change among those purchasing Kanye’s Jesus is King album are Caucasians. Certainly, they’re not listening to Kanye just because he’s black and they can somehow magically identify with a non-Western Jesus.
In fact, the latest poll demonstrates that white people are now bigger fans of Kanye West than non-white people.
Lecrae’s accusation that Kanye’s music is only popular because it allows people to identify with a non-white Jesus is absurd. It seems that Lecrae is just sore that while he’s busy ditching Jesus to follow after the world in order to become like Kanye, Kanye got saved and is now busy ditching the world to become more like Jesus.
And in doing so, Kanye has become a better version of Lecrae than even Lecrae. Lecrae is noticeably bitter.
