Kanye West Defended His Support For Trump And The Republican Party At A Recent ‘Sunday Service’

With the upcoming album, Jesus Is King, and the performance of gospel music at his spiritual Sunday Service shows, Kanye West is using his platform to teach the public about his religious views. The rapper is also calling upon the same audience to speak about his political views. A known Trump supporter, West explained his support of the president, as well as several other of his ideologies, on stage during a Sunday Service performance in Salt Lake City.

West began by explaining his support for the Republican Party. Though he himself has previously admitted he didn’t vote in 2016, West said he feels stigmatized as a person of color and a Republican. “Abraham Lincoln was the Whig Party — that’s the Republican Party that freed the slaves,” Kanye said before explaining he refused to oppose Trump based on the color of his skin. “I ain’t never make a decision based only on my color. That’s a form of slavery — mental slavery.” Kanye has made similar statements about the Republican Party on social media in the past but was criticized for failing to recognize that political parties look nothing like they did in the 1860s.

West continued that another form of mental slavery is social media. “Do not read comments on the Internet. These people don’t know you like that. Social media is designed to make you think slower. … They want to slow you down and control you.”

The rapper then turned his focus to criminal justice reform. He said that instead of focusing on issues with the NFL, people should be more concerned with how broken the criminal justice system is. “Right now, there’s one in three African Americans in jail in this country.”

The Sunday Service event in Salt Lake City arrives just a week after Kanye’s record was supposed to be released. Though Kanye had previously confirmed Jesus Is King would arrive in late September, October has rolled around and there’s still no Kanye album to speak of.