For those just tuning into the Sunday Service beat, it’s one of the more curious artifacts of this year’s faith/pop culture intersection. Kanye West, a man who needs no introduction, started pseudo-church services as a way of seeking his own healing, according to his wife Kim Kardashian West. Since then, they’ve become a West Coast phenomenon, drawing celebrity guests with their mix of gospel music, Kanye classics and, uh, Christian parodies of Nirvana songs.
And now Kanye’s taking Sunday Service on the road to, shall we say, mixed results. He showed up at Queen’s historic Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral on Sunday and shortly after the church’s typical Sunday morning service, performed his own Sunday Service, bringing in “dozens” of first-time guests in addition to Greater Allen’s usual congregation. The Daily Beast notes that several members walked out during the performance.
Daily Beast reporter Brooke Leigh Howard turned in an unimpressed writeup, saying that “[t]he concept of ‘Sunday Service’—enlightening a younger generation through relatable music, a choir dressing to express themselves as individuals, and celebratory dancing—seems inspiring, if it wasn’t a Kanye West Experience.”
