Kanye & Jay-Z & the Caucasian Jesus Piece

Kanye has always been in search of validation

Young Kanye was very insecure

So I’m up in Kanye’s apartment. It’s 2004 and he’s promoting his first album The College Dropout. Jesus Walks is all over the radio. He comes out of the bedroom in Ralph Lauren and a spectacular Jesus piece that’s brand new. He’s very proud of it. The face is the size of a grown man’s palm. There’s yellow diamonds for Jesus’s blonde hair, blue diamonds for His blue eyes and little rubies for the tears of blood. So, Kanye is wearing a Caucasian Jesus piece. Wow.'

Now if this interview had taken place a year earlier, that probably would’ve slid by but for some reason at the beginning of 2004 I challenged myself to never lie. On January 1^st I said to myself ok, I won’t ever lie for the whole year, and let’s see how it goes. Also, I believe that the actual Jesus was a brown-skinned man who looked like me. The whitewashing of Jesus is something Europeans did centuries after He died and it’s super offensive. Also, in Jesus Walks, Kanye alludes to the idea that he believes that Jesus is Black. But now he’s in my face, three minutes after we met, with this blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus and he’s asking me if I like his chain. He says I’m the first person outside of the crew to see it. I can’t lie but I don’t want to hurt his feelings because we just met and I gotta roll with him the whole day. So, I don’t say what I think. I ask a question. Doesn’t it bother you to sport a Caucasian Jesus? He kinda plays it off and we move on but an hour later out of the blue he says, do you think other people will say what you said about my chain? Oh lord I’m in his head. An hour after that he makes an emergency trip to the jewelers to see if he can get it fixed so it can look more African. Did it work? No.

In the afternoon we went to Jacob the Jeweler’s small showroom in Manhattan and he tried to change the stones so the face looked more African. They tried using brown stones to replace the yellow and blue ones but to Kanye’s eyes, it just didn’t really work. He left with the chain unchanged but he remained insecure about it. Kanye, then as now, craves validation. He needs to be told that he’s doing good. On the day I was with him twenty years ago I saw him seeking that out the same way we see him seeking it out now.

So, he’s wearing the Caucasian Jesus piece at 10pm in the parking lot of tiny Kean College in New Jersey. He’s about to go onstage. It’s one of his first shows. Then Kanye spots Jay-Z’s Maybach 30 yards away in the same lot. Ye jumps out and practically runs over. And I jump out and basically run after him because getting a scene with Kanye and Jay together would be amazing for my story. What I didn’t know is that I was going to have to make it an amazing story.

So Kanye jumps in the front seat of the Maybach while I go to the back passenger window and lean in like the worst little brother ever. I’m like a foot away from Jay who’s in the backseat so I can hear everything. Kanye takes off the Jesus piece and hands it to Jay. Jay is impressed. He looks at it and quietly nods his approval. But I had to say something. I think it’s ok for journalists to sometimes say little things that change the course of a moment if what they’re saying is about getting at the truth. So I decided to insert myself. I did it becase I wanted a great story. And because I knew Jay and I knew how he loves to tease people. And because Kanye rocking a Caucasian Jesus is wack. And because I know how Black folks are when we get a chance to call someone out on being too whitecentric. So I said to Jay, “That’s a white Jesus.” That’s all I said. I might’ve put a little stank on the word white but probably not. Immediately, Jay caught the vibe. His whole mood changed and his whole face shifted. He was no longer impressed. He said, “You gotta darken that face up, man.” Kanye said we went to Jacob the Jeweler and the blue eyes look best. Jay said Yeah, that’s what they make you think. Then he laughed and I know Kanye felt one inch tall. Jay said, “You gotta tuck that in.” Ouch.