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Recordings › Lupe Fiasco | Stardom, Semiotics & Soul-searching | MindTrap#56 | Mufti Abu Layth al-Maliki MALM · 26 Apr 2021 › Segment 19 of 27

machine

What is Lupe Fiasco's view of Kanye West's religious rebirth?

udhiyah qurbani qurbaani udhiya udhiyya kurbani muftis iman imaan eemaan eeman djinn jin jinnat jinni shaytan shaitan shaytaan iblis iblees shayateen shayatin satan deen al-din ad-deen ad-din

Working with Kanye West and Jay-Z, and Kanye's religious rebirth

QuestionLive chat · questioner not identifiedAnswered 26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu LaythSegment 19 of 27 in the recording2021-04-26-S19

Includes guest speechQuoted view · not his position
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This segment1:44:23 to 1:48:51 · 4 min 28 sA view quoted in order to be discussed, not a position held

The answer in brief

machinesummary, machine-written

The guest declines to judge Kanye West's faith, praising his work ethic while disagreeing with him, and calls Jay-Z a mentor and a genius with words.

In more detail

Mufti Abu Layth invites viewers' questions and relays ones about working with Jay-Z and Kanye West and about Kanye's religious rebirth. The guest says he does not want to speak about anyone's faith decisions, recalling that Kanye made 'Jesus Walks' long ago, and that he does not question anyone's legitimacy, joking that he questions daily whether he is Muslim himself because he does not believe in jinn. He describes Kanye as a creative genius whose distinguishing trait is relentless work ethic, which he has seen first hand as they are both from Chicago, while saying he has firm disagreements with him, and calls Jay-Z a sage, a genius with words and one of his mentors.

Question as read aloud · questioner not identified

How was it working alongside Jay-Z and Kanye West, and what are your thoughts on Kanye's rebirth in faith?

Position stated

This segment presents a view in order to discuss or respond to it. It is recorded as quoted, never as held, and no position is attributed from it.

Kind: a view quoted in order to be discussed, not a position held Speakers: host and guest; guest speech is labelled and excluded from positions

Transcript

machine1:44:23 to 1:48:51 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary

A guest speaks in this segment. Guest speech is labelled and is excluded from the positions layer.

This segment states a view in order to discuss it. It is recorded as a quoted view, not as a position held.

1:43:43

kind of like rejection that's happening and the youth are trying to figure out a way to fit in and make themselves feel important and you know a lot of those things are just you know being big and bad or or being rebellious or being this or being that um but at the same time too i think there's a whole group of individuals and young kids are doing just fine you know figuring it out who find purpose to find reason um who find a rationale to maintain and they find the credibility generated from themselves you know they don't need a religion to make them credible they don't need they don't need me or you to make them feel credible about their life and their

1:44:22

relationship to whatever um and i think as long as we allow folks and and celebrate those folks and let them know like hey man you don't you don't necessarily have to abide by the the common classic rules of success in this world to have value yeah wow oh that's very i mean that wow that's there's a lot to take in there um i was i was going to say people if you've got some questions and you want to have them at the legend himself go on then fire away in the comments

1:45:00

the spicy spicy the masala send it send it go on then let's have some questions what did you want to ask lupe the legend himself right so people whilst you send in your questions so lupe a quick one that some people had already asked working alongside people as people had asked working alongside uh jay-z and kanye kanye west what uh your thoughts on on these people had asked how was it what's the uh uh somebody had also somebody had also mentioned about

1:45:38

kanye's rebirth and your thoughts on that in faith i'm i'm not i'm not so sure about that but myself but i just that was a question right i mean i don't want to i don't want to speak too deeply into into anyone else's kind of faith decisions um i can't say you know kanye made jesus walks you know so remember that like he's the same guy who made jesus walks a long long time ago right um it was part of his you know ascendance to where he is right now you know so i don't think he's ever shied away from kind of putting his faith out there

1:46:15

um and i'm not one to question anyone's legitimacy i question i questioned on a daily if i'm even muslim i'm like am i really muslim because i don't believe in jen's like i don't by the way saying there's no such thing as demonic possessions in islam so can and make eggs is that demonic um so like yeah some make me eggs the other day um but but in terms of just working with him i mean kanye is a he's a creative genius is he any more of a genius than anybody else that i

1:46:55

know no but what what he does have and i think that whether you're a genius or you're a fool is work ethic right kanye will work and work and work and work and work by any means necessary until he gets his vision out right um and completes his vision um sometimes by any means necessary but that's one thing that i've always you know admired about him and i've seen his career because you know we both from chicago so i've seen his career we've we've intermingled many times in our careers right um when i had a deal and he was trying to get a deal you know like and it's those kind of

1:47:35

situations and no matter what he always worked you know he always works so i always look at everything that he has i don't look at it as being like a gift from the devil right to that he's never going to make it into heaven right and like i don't look at it like that i can look at it as like these are receipts from a guy who really really works you know and a lot of the things that he has about and this isn't to be hero rise him or anything like as he has i have firm disagreements with him um but in terms of the things that he's gained and the position that he has um i do know that there's a work ethic firsthand that there's a work ethic behind that

1:48:13

and a sacrifice behind that that you don't see in other folks who are you know legitimate geniuses you know but they're working at subway you know or they're working down at the burger stand because they don't have the work ethic you know or the execution to execute on their ideas so i always give kanye that p's jay-z's just like a sage kind of hermit type dude you know um but he's absolutely he's an absolute genius in words like he's he's one of my mentors directly and then kind of indirectly creatively i pattern myself the way he uses words the way he raps the way he makes music and i have disagreements you know with with with him and some of his content and stuff like

Paragraphs overlapping 1:44:23 to 1:48:51. Full text on the recording page.

Cite this segment

Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2021-04-26-S19, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/oyiipehuiha/s/19/ (accessed 1 November 2026)

APA 7 
Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, April 26). What is Lupe Fiasco's view of Kanye West's religious rebirth? [Video, segment 2021-04-26-S19, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/oyiipehuiha/s/19/
Chicago author-date 
Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "What is Lupe Fiasco's view of Kanye West's religious rebirth?" Video, segment 2021-04-26-S19, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded April 26, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/oyiipehuiha/s/19/
BibTeX 
@misc{abulayth-2021-04-26-S19,
  author = {Mufti Abu Layth},
  title = {{What is Lupe Fiasco's view of Kanye West's religious rebirth?}},
  year = {2021},
  month = {4},
  date = {2021-04-26},
  howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/oyiipehuiha/s/19/}},
  url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/oyiipehuiha/s/19/},
  organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive},
  urldate = {2026-11-01},
  note = {Segment 2021-04-26-S19, auto-transcribed, may contain errors}
}
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