Rappers Jay-Z and Kanye West have expressed their love of gratuitous violence. The pair has released a new music video, “No Church in the Wild,” [1] depicting a violent riot with police and rioters engage in full-scale mayhem.
“No Church in the Wild” opens with a protestor throwing a Molotov cocktail at police. The violence only escalates from there; the video is a patchwork of firebombs, fights, and destruction.
The lyrics of the song [2] similarly celebrate anarchy, as an excerpt from the song makes clear:
We formed a new religion
No sins as long as there’s permission
And deception is the only felony
So never fuck nobody without telling me
Sunglasses and Advil, last night was mad real
MTV.com praised the video [3], calling it a “powerful message” and lauding its “gritty violence and social commentary.”
This isn’t the first time Kanye and Jay-Z have glorified rioting [4]. They joined with Rihanna in 2009 to create a song, “Run This Town,” [5] that also featured a mob engaging in destruction.
The director of “No Church in the Wild,” Romain Garvas, also has a penchant for depicting violence in his videos. In 2010, Garvas directed an even more violent [6] music video by controversial star M.I.A., “Born Free.” [7]
The Huffington Post [8] noted that “The Occupy Wall Street parallels seem too obvious to mention.” And the parallels are striking, considering the tone-deaf support Jay-Z and Kanye West have given the Occupy Movement.
Jay-Z sold Occupy T-shirts [9] without sharing the profits with the Occupiers, drawing the ire of the Occupy Movement [10]. Kanye showed up to support [11] the Occupy Movement wearing expensive gold chains. And their millions of dollars [12] make them the embodiment of the 1 percent.
The Occupy Movement and the violence Kanye and Jay-Z glorify through “No Church in the Wild” show a disregard for order.