Jesus Is King (film)


Jesus Is King is a 2019 American experimental concert short film by Kanye West and directed by Nick Knight, featuring West's gospel-rap group, Sunday Service. The film accompanied the release of Jesus Is King, West's ninth studio album released after a series of delays on October 25, 2019.

Production

On September 29, 2019, it was announced that IMAX and Kanye West were collaborating to release a Sunday Service Choir concert film that had been filmed in the summer of 2019 at the Roden Crater in Painted Desert, Arizona.
Kanye West indicated that the purpose of the film was Christian evangelism, not entertainment: "We're here to spread the gospel. I'm not here for your entertainment. I'm an evangelist, so my music, my films, every conversation, every room I go in, we're here to save souls, save you from eternal damnation. I use art to make believers."

Release

A short preview of the film was shown at three listening parties for West's then-upcoming ninth studio album, Jesus Is King, on September 27, 2019 in Detroit, September 28, 2019 in Chicago, and September 29, 2019 in New York.
On October 17, 2019, a trailer for the film was released with a soundtrack of a gospel rendition of West's 808s & Heartbreak single, "Say You Will". British fashion photographer, Nick Knight was also named director of the film.
The film was released in IMAX theaters on October 25, 2019. In June 2020, West teased a digital release of the film through Apple.

Track listing

Track listing adapted from the film's credit roll.

Reception

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, Jesus Is King received an average score of 61, based on four reviews.
In a review for NME, critic Luke Morgan Britton wrote, "Kanye's sublime but flawed visual journey stops short of enlightenment," adding that "despite its aesthetic brilliance, it fails to reach its potential and ends up lost in a struggle of what it wants to be... A live concert film? A high-gloss advert? A desktop screensaver-ready nature doc? Or simply a vehicle to enable the spouting of scripture? Instead, it's a jarring mixture of all of the above."