Kanye West Bringing His Sunday Service to Sloop, Northerly Island This Morning (9/8)

Hometown kid Kanye West is known for a lot of things, but most recently it's his Sunday Service which has been happening regularly since the beginning of the year.  News of him bringing his "service" to Northerly Island today at 9am popped up in the news yesterday and although it's a free show, it sold out in less than an hour.

We've read about it and watched videos on it and have seen it pop up in the news in a variety of ways.  But what is it - well we're still not really sure.  If you're to believe the purest intention, it's presumably Kanye's vision for giving his congregation some form of spiritual connection.  On that level we're intrigued, if not a little skeptical.

On the other hand, is it just another endeavor to further prop up an already mythical but egotistical, complicated but brilliant artist? 

Who the hell knows - and maybe why does it matter.  It's probably somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.  It's interesting and it's peak Kanye.

If this means anything to you, head on over to Northerly Island this morning and brave the rain for something that could be special.

Or at minimum, you can stream the show at 9am at sundayservice.com.     

If you're still unsure what we're talking about here is a blurb from Chicago Tribune:

It’s a safe bet that you can’t think of the last time that a ticket to church was the hottest thing in town. But that was before Kanye West’s Chicago iteration of his “Sunday Service.”

The rapper will host a 9 a.m. event at Northerly Island on Sunday, that will be — something.

Previous versions have included celebrities, musical performances and been things that the hoi polloi can only read about. The guest lists were closely held, including the likes of Brad Pitt, Katy Perry, Tyler, the Creator and others. The Chicago event, open to the general public, is a very different take on the weekly thing that West has been doing since the beginning of the year, according to media reports. When Sunday’s event was announced and the free tickets made available via TicketMaster, they went quickly. Northerly Island has a capacity of about 30,000 for concerts, but what the setup will be like for the West event isn’t known.

What is safe to say is that West will be front and center. When NPR chronicled one of the “Sunday Service” events held during the 2019 Coachella music festival, New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino said in that story, “He is the church ... he is the text of the sermon. It’s his songs. He is the worship. He is creating a church in himself and selling it, really.”