Kanye West says his shift from secular music helped him secure a collaboration with Dr. Dre.
During his most recent Sunday Service in Lynwood, California, Kanye told church-goers he had dedicated a lot of time trying to produce beats as good as Dre's. Thankfully for Ye, he ended up joining forces with the Aftermath founder on the forthcoming sequel to Jesus Is King—the chart-topping gospel album that arrived in late October.
"Jesus Is King is my first clean album. I used to spend all my time trying to make my beats be mixed as good as Dr. Dre," Ye is heard saying in a clip shared by TeamKanyeDaily. "Who knew all I had to do was do an album for God and then Dr. Dre would start mixing my beats? Spend your time on God, and he'll handle the rest."
Kanye also touched on cancel culture, and reiterated the importance of thinking for oneself.
"Cancel culture. Does this look like canceled to you?" he asked the crowd. "What if God canceled us? We can't let the internet control our minds ... No matter what type of press they wanna put up ... God has already won the victory. Jesus has already won the victory."
Lynwood Mayor José Luis Solache reflected on Kanye's unexpected visit to the Greater Emmanuel Temple Church, calling the Sunday Service "empowering" while acknowledging Ye's polarizing nature.
"After reading some of your comments coming in on my FB and IG Live feed this morning, it was apparent that neither he or his message is everyone's cup of tea," Solache wrote on Instagram. "Honestly, the service was empowering and in the moment all I thought about was about the power of the gospel and how it can change all of us ... Kanye was nothing but respectful and down to earth. In his world, all I need and hope from him — as your Mayor — is that he remembers a little town in California called Lynwood, where he was treated with respect and kindness."
In other Ye-related news, TV host James Corden recently shed more light on the Airplane Karaoke segment that aired in October. Corden told fellow late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that Kanye had canceled on him multiple times, and was the one who suggested the segment be moved from a car to an aircraft so that his choir could participate.
"The first time he agreed and then he canceled a few days later, and you're [like], 'Well, that's a shame, but it's fine,'" Corden said during his Jimmy Kimmel Live appearance. "The second time that Kanye canceled Carpool Karaoke was so late in the day that I was driving up his road in the car, with all the cameras, and got this phone call saying it’s been canceled ... I think I basically turned around outside his house and drove back to the studio."
Corden said he received another text from Kanye shortly after, with a request to film Carpool Karaoke with his choir in either a truck or a bus. Corden happily agreed.
"And he goes, 'Cool, let's do it on Monday.' And I was like, well, that's difficult because we need to get a truck and permits ... the choir I think is 150 people," Corden recalled. Thankfully, Kanye's team pushed the shoot date back to Wednesday, which gave Corden and his team more time to prepare. But on the day they were scheduled to film, Corden received an email from Ye's team stating "it's not gonna happen today."
"But this is where he's brilliant. [Kanye] then goes, 'I want to do it on an airplane.' And we go, 'OK, great. Yeah, why not? Let's do it on a spaceship," Corden said. "To his credit, he and his team gets the plane ... Even as I walked onto the plane, I thought at some point somebody was gonna go 'Yeah, no it’s not gonna happen today. We're going to do it tomorrow.'"
Thankfully for Corden and The Late Late Show viewers, Ye went through with the segment, which Corden described as a "once-in-a lifetime thing that I’ll never ever forget."
