Kanye West Wows Crowd With 'Jesus Walks' at AIDS Concert as Details About New Album Surface
Kanye West performed his classic hit "Jesus Walks" at a World AIDS Day event in Times Square on Monday night and new reports about his forthcoming album recently surfaced
The Grammy award-winning artist and self-proclaimed "Christian family man" fulfilled philanthropic duties in New York City last night, alongside other acclaimed musicians, in a bid to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS prevention.
He performed four popular tracks including his 2004 hit "Jesus Walks," which alludes to challenges he has faced in his Christian walk of faith. Other performers included Carrie Underwood, Bruce Springsteen and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and more.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"I'm working on one mission, and that's a mission from God," West once told Power106FM about his work. "I'm here to help. I'm going to apply all the blessings I've got."
The powerful performance came amid news that the rapper is gearing up to release his seventh studio album. It is unclear whether the project, which is a follow up to West's 2013 "Yeezus" album, will feature faith elements like so many of his previous albums have, however; a music veteran and longtime collaborator of West's described it as being "different."
"The album is different. It's like a pair of Timberlands; like how Timberlands are not quite leather and not quite suede," Malik Yusef previously told Rolling Stone. "It's not the smooth, slick Chicago music sound we have right now and it's not the ruggedness of just 'hip-hop hip-hop hip-hop'...We've been all around the world [recording]."
The rapper, who is said to be planning a North American tour in 2015, made headlines last year while performing his "Yeezus" tour in the U.S. following his decision to bring out a Jesus look-a-like on stage during "Jesus Walks."
"I had a friend of mine that's a pastor there as we started discussing how we wanted to deliver it," West previously told Wild 94.9.
"My girl [Kim Kardashian] even asked afterwards, 'Is that weird if Jesus comes onstage?'" he continued. "They're like, 'No. We do plays all the time. People play Jesus. You know what's awesome about Christianity? We're allowed to portray God. We're allowed to draw an image of him. We're allowed to make movies about him. Other religions, you're not allowed to do that. That's what's really awesome about Christianity. That's one of the really awesome things."
