Shenead Poroosotum
Following his Sunday Service at Joel Osteen's megachurch in Houston, Kanye West then took to Twitter to announce that an opera 'Nebuchadnezzar' directed by Italian performance artist Vanessa Beecroft, would be coming on November 24th. He then also posted a picture of himself and Dr Dre in the studio with the caption 'Ye and Dre Jesus is King part II coming soon.'
Firstly, the announcement of a Kanye West opera came as a surprise to fans online. But after some thought, maybe it does make sense. West does have a history of always creating a narrative within his albums so potentially, a dramatic piece of work such as this would match the aura that Jesus is King was supposed to bring out to us. At this moment in time, we're not really sure what 'Nebuchadnezzar' could entail however we do know that Nebuchadnezzar was the greatest king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire who built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. He ruled during 605 - 562 BC and he was featured in the Bible, specifically in the Book of Daniel; Nebuchadnezzar asks Daniel to interpret his dreams when no one else could.
In his interview with Zane Lowe, West says: "Nebuchadnezzar was the king... And he looked at his entire kingdom and said, 'I did this.' And God said 'Oh, for real? You did this? Sounds kind of similar, right? I'm standing on the tip of the mountain talking about Yeezus. Saying, 'I did this!' That I'm a God!" he then concludes by saying "Nebuchadnezzar was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and he was still king!" which is probably a more modern version of retelling how Nebuchadnezzar was humbled by God for boasting but then stricken with insanity.
As for the tweeted photo posted by both himself and Dr. Dre, it could be said that it may be too soon for a Jesus is King II as we're still easing ourselves into the new album, which was only released on October 25th. And we even heard that a Christmas album 'Jesus is Born' will be released (questionable by looking at Kanye's track record of album release dates).
Although it all seems pretty ambitious, is there anything that Kanye hasn't tried. He's done fashion, architecture and even video game development so is an opera really that unpredictable? In terms of whether Jesus is Born will actually be released is debatable; there have been countless times when Kanye has announced an album and to this day we're still waiting for it (Yandhi, Turbo Grafx 16 etc...) but we can only hope that everything falls into place.