few people would ever confuse kanye west for jesus christ.

except, well, kanye west.

famously, mr. west has one of the most unrestrained egos that we’ve seen in some time. yes, john lennon said the beatles were bigger than jesus christ, but kanye actually became jesus christ (seriously, click the link).

for the all the uproar the cover of rolling stone generated, nothing could compare, of course, to the outrage following the now-infamous imma-let-you-finish taylor swift moment at the 2009 mtv video music awards. the proverbial shit, indeed, hit the fan.

kanye could have never predicted the enormous outcry from fans and non-fans of taylor swift alike. the downward pr spiral was one of the most epic descents i’ve seen in quite some time. fewer have been so intense and so sudden.

what made the fall so incredible is, much like the old saying, the bigger they are, the harder, in fact, they fall. kanye was on top. in my estimation (and i don’t say this flippantly), kanye is the greatest rapper right now. period. better than jay-z. better than snoop. better than outkast. better than anyone. he’s the only rapper that i actually pause what i’m doing to hear new tracks when released. every album has been brilliant and innovative and worth the hype.

but back to that whole ego thing.

i love the music of kanye. i can’t stand the person of kanye.

in the midst of these conflicting realities, kanye has become an epic twitterer. as we all know now, kanye’s ego and over-the-top music-video-of-a-life has taken twitter by storm over the last 6 weeks. and whereas he’s kept us entertained and appalled and speechless and dumbstruck during this span, this past weekend, he flooded twitter like we’ve never seen before.

over the course of 70+ tweets within a span of a couple hours, kanye publicly addressed the taylor swift situation, almost a year after the offense took place. yes, he took small moments to give some context to his reasoning and point-of-view. yes, he made a point to point out that the media did its due diligence to demonize him. and yes, he offered moments of self-promotion. but, then this happened:

the tweet heard ’round the world? maybe. maybe not. but it was certainly retweeted by hundreds of people. why? because kanye west, of all people, doesn’t do that. he doesn’t apologize. he doesn’t regretfully reflect on his actions. he doesn’t let the demonizing words of other get at him. that isn’t kanye west.

he’s the guy who poses as jesus christ. he’s the guy who shouts his greatness in every song. he’s the guy who regularly reminds us that he’s kanye west.

but here he is apologizing to a teenaged pop singer. to someone whose 15 minutes of fame has relatively no significance as compared to the legacy that kanye west has been building. to someone whose video wasn’t as good as beyonce’s.

but before he could even get to the apology, there was this piercing admission:

wow.

in the 2-hour soul-bearing session, there were moments of crazy. there were seemingly typical kanye west moments. and yes, it was over-the-top and bombastic at times.

but mostly it was humble and sincere and penitent and removed from the veil of smoke-screened pr. it was a beautiful and crazy and shocking and wonderful stream of consciousness that took a lot of guts and a lot of balls. exactly 1,006,519 followers read every last keystroke of a superstar on top become the humbled and broken repenter. if for possibly only that moment, the prince became the pauper.

is it hyperbolic to call it the gospel? maybe. is it over-the-top to compare him to jesus. 100%. absolutely.

but was it a magical moment in which unfiltered social media became the platform on which an out-of-touch superhero became the grounded human? indeed. was it good news? of course.

so that, in fact, was the gospel, according to brother kanye.