Sunday Service is costing Kanye West millions.
During his sit-down interview with Nick Cannon for his “Cannon’s Class” podcast, Ye revealed the massive price tag attached to his popular Sunday Service performances—$50 million to be exact. The money went towards operating expenses including choir uniforms, flights, and operas.
“I spent every dime that I have for marketing from Yeezy on Sunday Service. Every dollar I had,” he said. “I spent $50 million last year on Sunday Service if you add up the operas, if you add up the flights. It was 120 people going to Jamaica.”
Sunday Service traveled the globe last year, with stops at Coachella, Howard University, Kanye’s ranch in Wyoming, L.A.’s The Forum, Joel Olsteen’s Lakewood Church, Jamaica, and more.
Ye says the money for Sunday Service came from marketing for his hot-selling Yeezy sneakers. “The Yeezys, they were selling themselves,” he said. “So instead of paying for ads, I invested it in the church. I invested in spreading gospel. I invested in saying Jesus’ name on high.”
Ye was recently sued for $20 million over the technology behind Sunday Service. MyChannel, Inc. filed suit against the mogul, claiming he brought them on in spring 2018 to help develop video and e-commerce for Yeezy including livestream technology for Sunday Service before Kanye cut ties with the company and allegedly stole its technology.
Elsewhere during his 45-minute interview with Cannon, Ye denied that he’s being bribed by Republicans to run for president and boasted that he’s richer than Donald Trump. “Bro, can’t nobody pay me,” said Ye, who claims he’s worth $5 billion. “I got more money than Trump.”
Kanye also told Nick that he’s interested in buying photo agencies with his billion-dollar fortune (“I’ll buy all the paparazzi companies. I wanna pick the exact photos”) and shared the inspiration behind his political platform, the Birthday Party.
“I can only give God the glory because of the connection point to the Birthday Party is dealing with life and pro-life,” he said. “Because these are kids that are now gonna get a chance to have birthdays.”
Plus, the Jesus Is King rapper said it was God who told him to storm the stage during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV VMAs.
“If God ain’t want me to run on stage and say Beyoncé had the best video, he wouldn’t have sat me in the front row,” he said. “I would’ve been sitting in the back. It wouldn’t have made it so ridiculous of an idea because I had never heard of this person before, and ‘Single Ladies’ is, like, one of the greatest videos of all time. And I was only drinking Hennessy because I didn’t want to go to the awards show because it was a set-up.”