You're now listening to Vices and Vultures, a podcast on cultures. This will be another one of those episodes where we talk a lot about faith. We've discussed our faith in the previous episode. We've discussed it before in general.
And it's not something that we will stop talking about because it impacts a lot of the conversations that we have both on and off the air. So anyways, welcome back everybody. Thank you for listening. And today we're going to be talking about faith in a couple of different contexts.
We'll start with two for now. If we have more inspiration later, we'll hit record again, but for now we'll start with two. Alright, so we'll just leave off with this. Listen, how come that came out last year in Jesus' King?
Which I thought was very interesting given the person who was putting it out. That individual's Kanye West and he made out called Jesus' King. But a couple of albums ago he gave out in called Jesus. And my lead off question for VH is how genuine can faith be in megastar marketing?
Because Kanye is a megastar. Definitely not genuine at all. I mean, where I'm coming from, it's like, you know, I watch a lot of interviews and I read a lot of comments that people were talking about, like, I'm supporting where he's going and, you know, I'm supporting the movement. And I think the whole movement is kind of BS to me.
And do you think he's a false prophet? Oh, that's a fact. I just had to explain why. And a lot of people may not be understanding that because the reason why they want to understand is because they haven't done the studies that we have.
Does that make sense? Right. Yeah, absolutely. Or I'm not just a flanclooed journalist conversation or I have because it's just like, you know, and Chris Rock had a joke about Christmas where he said Jesus was the least materialistic person but he changes so quite very into the most materialistic things on earth.
So there is no way somebody can convince me you talking about Jesus. If you're talking about the Jesus that I know from the Bible, Kanye is nothing. And he's doing nothing. It's not even close, bro.
Remotely related to what Jesus has done, bro. It's something more than what he has put out in the Bible. Exactly. And just look at the way the guy talks.
Look at the way he talks. And Kanye is very arrogant. And when we say that, arrogance is, you know, is Jesus really who you being, that's, who's influenced you, I feel like arrogance should be a quality that you should portray as a human being if I'm making any sense. Of course.
You know what I'm saying? It's his understanding of it versus our understanding of it. And that's what I want to make sure everybody understands this listening because our understanding of what we say and why we say it, like such as a false prophet, which is really be coming down to the definition of if you are who you say you are, then you tell the truth. If you're not, then you're not.
And what we see is, you know, faith as a marketing trend because what do you have with well marketed Christian bands such as Elevation Worship and Hillsong United and Hillsong Worship and Bethel Music and all these popular ones, right? Was that the core that good marketing? Are there other musician, great musicians in the Christian music industry? Absolutely, bro.
Without a fact, but they don't have that marketing support, that elevation churches. And because remember these, these big groups are coming from big, like big churches that have like, you know, international audiences because of what they've done with the creative aspect, particularly the music, because that's one of the fastest vehicles that the message can travel through. So you have all these different things and at the core of it is just great marketing. Elevation, especially recently, the way that they've designed their work and appealed to like that crowd of people, they're appealing to all these different groups and stuff because they have the marketing for it.
And what these marketers know is that if you dip into the faith, if you dip into the faith jar, if you will, you know, you're going to get a lot of catches. We see a couple of months ago, Tori Kelly put out a new record and she switched to gospel pop like hybrid kind of thing. It's just like he said, it's marketing. It's not even that, bro.
Who was behind? Who exactly proves that? I'm going to tell you about that. Kurt Franklin.
Kurt Franklin was behind all that music. If you listen to us, another fourth profit, bro, let me run out the argument, bro. Let me run out the argument. So Kurt Franklin, one of probably the most popular male gospel artists that we know currently for a lot of different reasons now, which we'll get into later, right?
Remember this, Kurt Franklin executive produced this Tori Kelly record. That's why he speaks it on some of the songs and the videos and things like this. So who's Tori Kelly? Tori Kelly, she was a pop artist before this.
She didn't put any GZ. She was never a gospel artist. She was never a gospel artist, but you know, I haven't done research at that end, but I have listened to her music before. And I'm a Kurt Franklin fan, and all of a sudden she put a gospel record out, you know, she's taking the faith route with her music.
This was before the Kanye record came out. You know how large Tori Kelly's following is? You look it up later for people who are following, they are listening, they have a good understanding of Tori Kelly. She's a radio artist, right?
Before this. Now she crossed over into faith. It only grows from there because now you got Christians who are already looking for something new, some new stuff to listen to. They get some Kurt Franklin influence, Tori Kelly.
It's like popping gospel all in one. Like, yo, everybody's dating this. So you know, Kanye sees that. You know, Kanye has worked with Kurt on a song before, which is the crossover for as many people would say Kurt Franklin was, whatever, but what is at the core of that?
It's marketing. It's all marketing. Kanye is one of the, or not Kanye, Kurt. It's one of the biggest influencers in gospel.
Tori's one of the biggest influencers in pop. Kanye is one of the biggest influencers in hip hop. I never saw it that way. I never thought about it.
Yeah, no, I know. But like, I wanted to bring it up because that's very important. That's the very important. That's the very important.
That's really interesting. It's all marketing. It's all marketing. The Takashi 6.9 is not going to happen what like 2018, 2019 or maybe even a little earlier than that, but it definitely, you know, wrapped up recently.
All that is marketing. He had a large enough platform to blow the story up to where it is today. If he didn't have that backing, if he didn't have the creative team to like get done the videos that he wanted to get done to like show, you know, all of this stuff that was going on, the visuals, then, you know, it's not where it is now. But we have to ask these questions because we have to understand, you know, where the intentions lie before you invest in a project like this.
I see the Kanye records that he puts out as Kanye records. It's a record put up by Kanye West, who has very poor rising ideas. And I just leave it at that. A lot of people, I feel, take it way more seriously than they need to and get too invested in it.
And, you know, it just becomes unhealthy at that point. So Kanye makes music, you know, because Kanye makes music a couple years ago, he was blasphemous. Now he's a prophet. You know what I'm saying?
Now he's doing Sunday service, which is another thing because the Sunday day is like... He's still desperate, bro. You know what Kanye has a video. No, but I'm saying that to fit, like, the profile where his mind is as far as just thing.
Like, I'm not saying he's actually a prophet because you know that. I don't believe that. But yes, I mean, it is very, it is very blasphemous. It's really how you're thinking like, you Jesus or something.
No, of course. I mean, like, when you go from that way, everybody's dancing around him and stuff. That's crazy. And I'm glad I haven't seen that.
Like, I'm like, bro, you know, that's very far from the Jesus. I know that's right. It has nothing to do with the Jesus. I know you know.
The conversations like this need to happen because I feel like everybody needs to see through stuff like this. It's like, you know, especially if you've grown up in a context, like, a faithless... You know, I already know what stuff is. Yeah.
I don't think people care. You feel me? Like, I really don't think people care. I don't think people care.
Sean makes things something all the time. Like he said... Like, the lies are more entertaining than it is. You feel me?
Like, we leave in this generation where nobody wants to do research. And, you know, I would never... I would not blink at it like that body, I would never say much to somebody. But like, have you ever...
Have you ever had a conversation with somebody they know you tell him the truth, but they just don't want to hear it, because... they don't hear the truth is because if I know now this is the truth, I'm not trying to do that. And this is how it works with, you know, this is how it works with the Bible as well. You know, and the Bible, you know, if you read the Bible enough, like this book will change, you know what I'm saying?
And the reason why we feel so really is because we know there are certain truths in there that are trans people. I'm trying to do, you know, not try to transform our lives. That's crazy. And that's why, exactly, this is why people rather live the way they live now is because okay, I want to be comfortable not knowing the truth.
I want to be comfortable doing the same thing that I've been doing for years and I just want to be happy and I want to leave in denial. And this is why I like certain things come. Nobody's asking questions. That's a life time because they don't know it.
Not because they don't want to just because they don't really care. So this is why it's like, you know, I saw the old Kanye thing. I think Kanye is a very creative guy, but he's not different from Steve's jobs. He's not different from, you know, because a lot of these guys are, they have creative people around it.
You know what I'm saying? They have people that have marketing. They have marketing that give them ideas and stuff like this. But when you think about all the people that's really done and their own like Kanye is telling, he's like, oh, I'm the greatest artist who ever lived.
Really bro? Like, like, oh, some people just want to pick up themselves like, and I get it. I get it. You know, you may feel like you were genius in that sense and I'm not knocking that.
But at the same time, yo, come on. Now, like, we have artists who have done art for like a year was great, like was greater than Kanye. Just because of the simple fact that when they were actually doing their art, that they were not working with a hundred people's on their payroll. That's all of them, you know, but at the same time, like I kind of respect Kanye because I'm not.
I'm a great a process man. And, you know, when you're talking about the creativity aspect of it, you know, I, of course, respect it. It has paid great dividends for him. I saw some financial, some financial knowledge regarding, you know, what Kanye has done regarding his fashion investments and things like this.
And, you know, I respect a lot of things like that. And he has to have a different process just because he has access to different things. But, you know, again, going back to the original topic as far as faith and all of that is a trend, bro. I mean, remember the last time you guys said, you know what, before you say that, like, because I don't want to forget that.
It's like the same way, you know, social media, social media is annoying, bro. Like, it's like the same way couples are posting pictures of them praying together. Like, they posting pictures of them praying together in everybody on the shared room and all this other social media platforms like, Oh, like, they seem kind of like this seems kind of cool. This is not about being cool.
This is real life. You know what I'm saying? Like, and if you actually don't, there's no need to be posting pictures about it. Does that make sense?
Like, yeah, but you know, people learn their validation. Yeah, exactly. Like, the fact that nowadays, we all got to post pictures praying together and it's like, what are we doing? Like, it doesn't make any sense to me.
But it's one of those things that becomes cool. Now it becomes cool to pray. But are we really praying? It's the ball.
We just show it. It's the validation. And if you think about what faith brings as far as like, what, in other people's lives, people like that, people like the validation that brings this type of validation where you won't get judged for it. Like, on the typical circumstance, like, Oh, he prays, like, Oh, he's a good person.
So like, you know, seeing people seeing, seeing, seeing my, what's it called being seen while praying is good for me, blah, blah. And what is that for the validation? They just find a way to validate their behavior so they can get attention. And that's a problem with a lot of people that a lot of people are posting because they want attention.
They do things that allow them to get more of the attention. They'll do it. But it's just this whole thing that just kind of makes it annoying. As far as what's it called?
As far as marketing is concerned, because like, we're thinking about this way, a lot of that just comes from the marketing tactics that the people that we follow do, like all those starts with big platforms and things like this. So they see, they get attention, they see all the tension that their inspiration gets, right? And then they try to do the same thing to get attention as well. Because in their mind, they're idealizing this person and say, I want to be this person.
I want to be just, you know, I want to be looked at or whatever. But, you know, it's not about being looked at. It's about, you know, getting done what you need to get done with it. And I feel like bad marketing, marketing that just wants to catch a trend such as faith, kind of confused the issue.
But it's cool. Like, the other thing I was going to mention was Justin Bieber, he last put on an album in like 2015, 2016 around that time. And this was the first year album that I listened to because of the fact that it sounded way more mature than his previous works in the best possible way. Like everything about the music elevator is a couple like really pop pop songs.
And I didn't like because I'm not a big pop music person. But I like this record a lot. And it got him a lot of, you know, rich record, it was called purpose. And he got a lot of really great reviews.
It's not 2020. It's been roughly five years give or take since he's dropped the record. Recently, he's been, you know, he got married. And then this dude also is openly professing his platform and things like this.
And at the same time, because it's just and people were talking about it, he has a lot of very laundry floating around the internet. He's dealing with all this stuff and he's publicizing everything. He's like, Hey guys, like, you know, put for me and things like that, you know, and he's roughly our age, or maybe a little bit older, but he's experiencing life the same way that we do just like on a different platform. And it's just really interesting seeing like, okay, people really are just playing their faith on social media on this platform as well.
But as you can see, it has a hard time lasting on that megastar platform, because there's just so much other stuff that people can get dragged into there and let you see it, like you see it everywhere. So I've also seen faith in like other, in like art. So there's a whole movement now where digital artists are creating surrealist art. So we'll take a bunch of different superimposed images like this.
This is probably one of the most popular ones that you might have seen. So we lose them art, when you do some portfolio, all that other stuff, where you just like take different things and just like super, super different, right? And so what you'll see in some of this art is like religious themes and things like this. So sometimes they'll take like the last separate painting.
So like they'll take this within like they'll change it into something else, that kind of thing. So like sometimes they'll see it in that as well, and I'm just like, Oh, this is different. But that's because growing up, I had a very specific idea about something. And then now I'm seeing it presented in a different way.
It's like, well, it's kind of, it's kind of wild to me. Right. You know what I mean? Um, right.
Let's see what else we got. Oh, yeah, here's that last one. So last time I mentioned this earlier, talking about the world events for the church. The last time that I went to one like this was 2015 and now it's 2020.
And I think about first, you know, we talk about like the faith that we believe in in general. But at the same time, we think about the world that we lived in 2015 versus now, five years, it's not a lot of time for some people, but for the world today, it's insane. So one of the first things that I think of is social media, of course. So between then and now, Instagram is like the thing.
And then recently take talk, but that's more within the past years. Oh, but social media and just the way that it has accelerated so much nowadays, like we were just talking about this. Nowadays, I mean, a lot of people through Instagram first, and like you get to see a lot of who they are before you meet them type of thing. It's been true for other platforms as well, but specifically within this timeframe, 2015 to present, you know, that changed a lot about culture, the conversation around women and then sexuality in general, that has changed a lot.
And that has influenced a lot of what you see now. And just like dating in general, because social media has influenced my dating, I was on the train yesterday and I, all I saw on the advertisements inside the train camp were hinge advertisements for the dating. Obviously dating out designed to be deleted or something like that. And that was the whole thing, like find your way on here and delete that or something like that.
And you know, things like that have changed dating culture because it was less common to meet somebody like that on what's it called? That's a marketing strategy too. Yeah, of course. It really meant to be deleted.
Because that's how you're making money by you staying on it. But they say that because they want you to believe it while they, yeah, I mean, some people might not be as lucky like us. You know, but what makes it so different from what makes it so different from a lot of dating app is still going to be the same people on there. I guess, I mean, listen, I guess for a lot of those companies, they have different displays and different ways of presenting the app that just make it seem different.
But the concept is all the same. So, but yeah, so much of that has changed like the world. And like, I'm really interested to see what happens this year, because it's in Indianapolis in 2020 and 2015 was in San Diego. I'm really interested to see how those changes have have affected like the church on the inside.
But that's like a very specific conversation. That's the one key bit like broad to the changes that have happened at world culture since then, because like we said in earlier talks, the changes that have happened now, you know, affect the whole world. So like, it's not just America that's being affected by, you know, the changes to Instagram, it's the whole world. And now like we have more access to like people from wherever, you know what I mean?
Right. Well, other things have you seen as far as changes that have happened since 2015 in particular with all the tech and all the other business. It's just a lot happening. It's just a lot happening that, you know, that's kind of overwhelming if you're trying to get into everything.
And everything. I mean, like, one other thing that we can talk about, and this has been brought to my attention a lot more lately, is just the climate change. So there's a lot of things that are going on, like with the climate that like I'm really looking at like, wow, this is this is really, that's another thing that people don't really understand. Like, yeah, but the always comes in here, like, yeah, I was coming here and I was listening to the radio and like, so a lot of businesses are trying to, you know, they're like, that that's becoming part of like their contract now, like climate change, you know, that's like the new discussion now.
Before I sign any papers, I just want to make sure that your business is environment, like is is contributing to the environment and stuff like this, which, which is good. It's good that we don't all of this for climate change and you're trying to change the environment. And we need that. We need positivity.
And we need everybody to get on board to be better people and stuff like this. But at the same time, like I'm looking at this from a Bible standpoint, bro, like the Bible said all these things were going to happen. Yeah, I was looking at the other day. Oh, like it's just these things are meant to happen and they're not new.
They've been happening. You know what I'm saying? And it's going to keep happening. You know what I'm saying?
We, as a people, have to do better, but at the same time, we have to educate ourselves on, you know, the end of times, you know, I feel like it's getting a little bit tricky. But not for me, that's true. I was looking into that last week because if you think about it, it hasn't been a month until the year then I feel like so much has happened. Yeah.
And that's like, you know, for us, you know, we've read about this things. You know what I'm saying? So it's just like, okay, now this is happening. And we know that's the beginning.
There are more things, you know, that has always been like that. Because if you think about the context of just time in general, so much time has happened between the beginning and the end of this thing. But yeah, as obviously getting close on that, I'm not trying to downplay anything like it isn't because it is. But at the same time, it's like, this is just something that's been happening on the larger scale for time and time and time.
So, like, there's a part of that whole that will probably that just says, don't worry about it. And like, that's kind of like where I am. It's just, I'm aware that this is supposed to happen. Not like, I wanted to happen, but it's just, I read about it.
We can talk about it more, you know, head this up in the messages on social media if you want to. But I read about it and I'm just like, okay, like, this is really unfortunate, you know, but what is one podcast episode? I mean, you know, I'm not going to discount it, but and this is why I really believe in the Bible. Like, you know, you have it's and that's why I would like to in the future.
I like to compensate with people. Is that the word conversation? Is that a good word, bro? But can you say it converse?
Yeah, I like to converse with, okay, if it wasn't a word, I just made it a word just now. I like to like, I like to talk to people that, you know, that knows a little bit of that, you know, then I don't look completely crazy when I'm telling you that this year before, like, this is nothing you feel me. No, I get 100% but, you know, not everybody, I find it very interesting, you know, yesterday on the train went on, you know, a different ride. There was some guy, there was some guy looking through a Bible study.
And it was kind of cool, because I was just like, you see a lot in New York, you don't see a lot of that. I mean, for as much as I travel the trains, which isn't as much as it will be later on, but yeah, that was kind of cool to see. But like I said, it's very rare. And you know, you'd be surprised.
I feel like in a way, it's kind of taboo for people to talk about just because of, you know, what other people they're worried about what other people might think. And we've all been there. I've been there, but you know, at the end of the day, I think it's, I don't mind any opportunity to talk about it because I feel like my life and my own way has kind of like proved like whatever I've read. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode of Vices and Vultures and considering being a supporter of this project.
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