Kanye West still feels the holy spirit.
After last year’s gospel album “Jesus Is King,” Yeezy is asking for spiritual release on his new single, “Wash Us in the Blood,” which he released Tuesday morning.
The single, which features 28-year-old Travis Scott, came up with a video showing a dizzying series of images capturing these turbulent times, including police confronted with protesters, coronavirus patients on fans, mass incarceration, and, in a twist strange, women twerking.
“Rain on the Pain / Rain on the Murdered”, West, 43, raps on the manic and forceful track, the first single from his upcoming album “God’s Country.”
“Holy Ghost come down / We need you now,” Scott chimed in later. (Of course, rapper “Sicko Mode” is baby daddy, and again and again West’s sister-in-law’s boyfriend, Kylie Jenner.)
Mixed by Dr. Dre, “Wash Us in the Blood” recalls the industrial edge rhythms of “Yeezus” from 2013. And as the song makes a charged statement about the Black Lives Matter movement and the global pandemic, the lyrics find West in ardent defense mode: “And they try to control Ye / They need to calm down / They don’t want Kanye / They don’t want Kanye to be Kanye / They want to sign a fake Kanye / They try to sign a calm Ye.”
The video was directed by documentary-style artist Arthur Jafa with vintage clips including old gospel images. It closes with the West Sunday Sunday Service choir rehearsing as his 7-year-old daughter North with his wife Kim Kardashian, 39, join.
After all the chaotic, sometimes haunting images, it’s a surprisingly sweet ending that comes out of nowhere.
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