Kanye's Religious Transformation

So talk me through how this starts with you. Were you always religious your whole life? Yes, I was. And then I hit high school. No, it's just... So, but you know, when you're a young man and you're a superstar musician and you live in a wild life, what was it that led you back to this? Just a feeling in your life that there was more to life, there was more to your position, there was more to this idea of a calling, that you felt like you could do more and that it resonated with you more to produce these Sunday services and to start thinking of life in this way. Like you can improve things. Yeah, God knocked me off my horse. God like literally called me and said, okay, now I need you. I need you right now. I mean, not that God needs me, we need God, but he called me to serve him. And I was tired of serving the music industry, tired of serving, filling up stadiums. The last concert, last tour I did, we had a floating stage and actually it was a hanging stage but it looked like it was floating. And that's just another thing, that's illusion where we need to dispel the illusion. I wouldn't even call it the floating stage today, but the whole thing about it is people used to say how I would lose money on tours because I would put so much into the creative. And I was like, wanted to prove, but prove to who? Prove to man, prove to greedy people, that I could make more than anybody. And that's like the gladiator position that all artists are put into. Like we're in the middle of this Coliseum. Let me show you, I can kill more lions and tigers and bears and people than any other gladiator that happened. So that's what I was doing. And then I remember talking to James Turrell and I was like at the top of my lungs, like screaming about saving ourselves and humanity and the reason why me and James needed to connect. And then I went to my show and then it's like my head popped back and the spirit jumped down and it felt like it was like my mom talking. And the last thing I said was, this thing is over. And I'm saying it like I sound like my mom, like Donda. Like that's something she would have said if she was in the physical form when she sees her son exhausted. Like I just went through a, I had this fashion show, we had this fashion show where we took over MSG and just broke all boundaries. So 16,000 seats and played the new album and it was a thousand black people in the show. And yeah, like all the young thug plugging in the iPhone and Travis and Cudi dancing. He had 50 Cent there, Jay-Z there, Lamar Odom. The first time that people saw him walk again was we walked together into the stadium and he's camo, Yeezy, jacket, all head to toe. And the reason why that was so important is like when he was in a coma, I would come by and play him the new music. And once he was out of the coma, he said that he remembered that music when he was in a coma and that was the album I was playing that day. So that's the reason why me and Lamar walked in together. And then the next few months later I did a fashion show and it started 45 minutes late and the media, they just killed me. They LeBron'd me as I would say, like when LeBron went to Miami and they said, who are you to have a choice? One of my other heroes, Tom Brady, he left. I didn't see no jerseys getting burned like when LeBron left. So then less than a week after that, my wife is robbed in Paris. Because I'm in the middle of tour while I'm doing the fashion show, while I'm doing this. So we cancel the tour because it's very traumatic. And then we start the tour back up and we get back into it. And then I just keep on saying, I want to go to Japan. I just want to go to Japan because Japan is like a way that people treat. There isn't like this systemic racism embedded in every single individual that's inside of the place like in America, black, white, anything. There's a systemic white supremacy. Like when I tag white supremacy or we say this, it's like, yes, that is America. That is the world currently. We've been taught that. My first superhero was Superman. My dad was a Black Panther. But when Disney makes Black Panther, now when you look it up, you don't see my dad protecting his neighborhood or snatching a mic out of somebody's hand while they're lying. I don't know, like father, like son right there. But you see this character that's made for black people to idolize that was designed by a white person and put out by a white company. So it's controlling the narrative to say, we're going to show you Harriet Tubman. We're not going to show you Nat Turner. And they do every chance they get. Maleficent, they called her race of people the Moors. And the Moors are... And I just saw it again. I was just like, yo, if you erase our history, like most black people we don't know, we think we came from slaves. We don't know our bloodline and we're given Black History Month and we take that like it's some gift to us. No, it's a programming to us. Racism doesn't end until we get to a point where we stop having to put the word black in front of it because it's like we're putting the rim a little bit lower for ourselves. When I say I'm the second wealthiest black man in America, why do I have to say that? Because obviously if we just go on wealth period or what we call wealth, like financial wealth, that scorecard, I'd be like, I'm the 78th wealthiest man in America, but we shouldn't have to have a special box, a special month because also what they show in Black History Month is us getting hosed down, reminding us that we were slaves. What if we had... Remember when I cheated on you, month? Remember when you first found the text messages? Remember how does that make you feel? It makes you feel depleted and defeated. No matter what religion you are, what we can agree on is it is always now, but now is the shortest moment of our life. It's gone in an instant. The longest moments of our life are our memories and our imaginations. Think about how long a kid imagines Christmas versus how long Christmas really is. When you think back to your Christmas, are you under the table like Jim Carrey and Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mile, like under a chair or are you a giant? Are you a king? Are you what Black History Month has told you you are? This is me speaking to black people specifically in America. I know people who would kill someone or have a gun in their own hood and be afraid to go downtown and literally be afraid of white people. The most gangsters of gangsters wouldn't go downtown and that's just a programming, but that program is inside of the curriculum. It's inside of the media and it goes to this whole idea of yay. When people say, is Jay crazy? Is Jay a narcissistic? Is Jay an egomaniac? Is Jay self-absorbed? Is Jay all these? No, yay ain't know who yay is. I know who I am and I'm not fint to bow to an idea that you want to have of me. I am going to be the full idea that God has of me. When I do things that God don't like, I'm being the lesser version of me. This is where in my weakness, God becomes strong. I have to be the higher me when people are downing me. It's not like me fighting fire with fire and me attacking or as you say, stooping to that level, it's like the devil will use you against you. You become your own worst enemy. Episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience are now free on Spotify. That's right. They're free from September 1st to December 1st. They're going to be available everywhere but after December 1st, they will only be available on Spotify but they will be free. That includes the video. The video will also be there. It will also be free. That's all we're asking. Just go download Spotify. Much love. Bye bye. Me. Bye bye.