Kanye West forms his own exclusive celebrity church after months of bizarre rants

At Kanye’s new weekly Sunday Service, celebs are photographed as they file in to worship West’s music and tolerate the odd off-colour rant.

Kanye West appears to have set up a clandestine, invite-only celebrity church.

“Sunday Service” is a weekly event where attendees are treated to gospel-style performances of Kanye’s music and sermons delivered by Kanye himself.

Kim Kardashian announced that the couple would be launching a new “Sunday Service” at the start of this year, inviting fans to watch Kanye rehearsing on her Instagram stories.

Since then, the Kardashian-Jenner family has spruiked the uplifting and mesmerising churchlike concert series on their social media platforms, posting videos of choir groups performing Kanye’s music in dark rooms lit with coloured neon lights.

There are also reports of Kanye veering into his signature rants.

WHAT IS HAPPENING AT KANYE’S SUNDAY SERVICE?

Each Sunday the congregation has been assembling at different locations. Multiple sources say the religious-themed event is invite only.

Kanye performs a set of his songs with a large group of musicians, including a choir, to a rapturous group of invited guests.

The musicians are dressed in designs from the rapper’s Yeezy collection, while to the side there’s a Yeezy lemonade stand, selling soda and $300 sneakers. Between songs, Kanye will sometimes ad lib bits of wisdom, or mini sermons.

Last week Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom attended, along with Courtney Love, rapper Tyler the Creator and Kim, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian.

The Kardashian Jenner clan often post video of the service, Kim and Kris sometimes live streaming portions of the event.

Different artists have joined Kanye as part of the performance including rapper Kid Cudi and singer Tony Williams.

Celebrity attendees have described the events as uplifting.

Kendall Jenner posted videos from the last Sunday Service.

West spent four weeks dominating headlines last year after proclaiming his support for President Trump. Picture: Saul Loeb

IS KANYE ACTUALLY PREACHING?

In the uplifting environs he’s building Kanye has, at least once, gone on a rant – a signature of his recent “Dragon Energy” period.

In one of his sermons in January, Kanye offered guidance on the recent controversy surrounding alleged sex offenders Michael Jackson and singer R Kelly.

Live streamed by Kris Jenner, Kanye could be heard apparently referring to the alleged sexual assault as “erratic”.

“Everybody, they want the art from the artist, but anytime they do anything erratic, they just gonna pull up full documentaries on ‘em,” Kanye said in a video of the service live streamed by Kris Jenner.

“Then they gonna come with the Michael documentary,” he said, apparently referencing controversial documentary Leaving Neverland.

“We can all enjoy all their music all we want. I thought I wasn’t going to go there today. If we’re gonna tear down artists, let’s go ahead and take (Leonardo) da Vinci out the Louvre. Let’s take down all the art.”

Kim took to Twitter a few days later to defend Kanye’s comments, claiming his words were taken out of context because of poor timing.

I’m going to nip this in the bud right now. Kanye was speaking about his own experience of everyone quick to say they are cancelling him because of differences in opinion & not being perfect. The analogies were in context to his own experiences, not defending anyone else.

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) January 14, 2019

At a recent Sunday Service event, rapper DMX gave a rousing “Morning Prayer” where he quotes from several Psalms and other bible passages to a crowd of cheering onlookers.

Morning prayer by DMX #SundayService pic.twitter.com/AGpMgUyF9U

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) March 17, 2019

This most recent Sunday Service apparently got so rambunctious that Los Angeles police were called by neighbours who complained about the noise.

Rapper Slim from 112 said he’s been collaborating with Kanye on “Christian music” and said the pair have been taking music that is “going on right now”.

“You put the lord Jesus, you know, make it Christian. It draws the youth to church. It makes church cool. You know what I mean?” Slim told TMZ.

In his meeting with President Donald Trump, Kanye dominated the conversation, discussing a rapid fire stream of topics, but also riffed on theories about “infinite amounts of universes”, before discussing how his deal with Adidas made him a billionaire.

Kanye has claimed multiple times that recent testing told him he has a genius IQ, in the “98th percentile” and compared himself to inventor Nicola Tesla and psychiatrist Sigmund Freud.

Last year Kanye began toying with different ideas in his social media rants, making a number of outlandish statements and gathering much media attention. The rapper stirred controversy when he voiced his support for the US President.

In May Kanye recorded an episode of TMZ Live, where he touched on a number of topics, but made international headlines by calling 400 years of slavery in the United States “a choice”.

Kanye later apologised for the comments, saying he was sorry if he hurt people.

“I’m sorry for people who felt let down by that moment, and also I appreciate you guys giving me the opportunity to talk to you about the way I was thinking and what I was going through and what led me to that,” he told 107.5 WGCI radio in Chicago last August.

During this period, Kanye discussed “mind control” and “consciousness” and spoke about his own experiences with bipolar, saying he’s been written off by critics and labelled crazy, and felt handled.

As his Twitter rant continued Kanye said he felt his mania needed to be looked at differently, saying the “members of press are afraid to speak to someone who has been diagnosed but is still everyone’s favourite super hero”.

“Perhaps we stop looking at my tweets as rants and start looking at them as therapy testimonials and some even ministry.

“You don’t make (the song) runaway on medication,” Kanye tweeted.

“Even alcohol is and addictive substance called spirits that actually block our earthly connection to our spirit when we drown ourselves in it.”

I’ve been trying to do a serious interview speaking on mental health but it seems as though all members of press are afraid to speak to someone who has been diagnosed but is still everyone’s favorite super hero

— ye (@kanyewest) December 15, 2018

Perhaps we stop looking at my tweets as rants and start looking at them as therapy testimonials and some even ministry

— ye (@kanyewest) December 15, 2018

Kanye’s comments are often defended and explained away by Kim Kardashian, who describes him as being “highly creative”.

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Originally published as Kanye West forms his own exclusive celebrity church after months of bizarre rants