And even though there is something almost psychedelic about the production, Jesus Is Born has less in common with the slick, radio-friendly textures of 21st-century gospel music. The album is at times minimal, just voice and piano, and at other times erupts into maximal textures of trombones, drums, and fluctuating voices that are all in the service of praise and joy. Timothy Wright’s original-when the choir climbs scales that reach notes so high it makes you feel like you’re staring directly into the sun. The effect can be hallucinatory, like on the opening track, “Count Your Blessings”-a rendition of Rev. The voices almost seem to warp in real-time as though Kanye were at the sampler tweaking speed and pitch. He’s still selecting old songs, whether they’re traditional hymns or late-’90s R&B hits, and recontextualizing them. Although there are no samples here, per se, it’s as if Kanye is using the choir as a living, breathing sampler. Instead, he’s assembled a massive choir to channel his Christian message in a joyous, all-consuming wave of sound. One of the most radical elements of the album is what’s absent: Kanye’s voice. To be clear, there is very little club to be found on Jesus Is Born-it is a pure gospel album. From songs like “Through the Wire,” where he flipped Chaka Khan’s “ Through the Fire,” and on his breakout hit, “Jesus Walks,” where he sampled the Arc Choir and gave us the first real taste of the way he fuses two seemingly disparate venues: the club and the church. Part of Kanye’s process is the meticulousness with which he works to flip samples by tweaking the speed, pitch, and phrasing to become something totally new.
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