I’m eager to look closely at “No Church in the Wild” because the musicians who perform the song are some of the most well known people in the United States, so it is interesting to analyze their insights into important topics, in this case organized religion. Jay-Z and Kanye West are truly pillars of American popular culture, so being able to dive deeper into their thoughts is an exciting prospect.

This is a protest song because it calls into question the righteousness of organized religion and institutional patriarchies. It asks questions like “What’s a mob to a king?” and “What’s a king to a God?” which provokes thought about purpose, which is ever-elusive in the pursuit of a holistic understanding of humans.

I believe that this song will likely lead me on a trail of investigating what Jay-Z, West, and Frank Ocean have said about organized religion and power structures in the past, both in their songs and in interviews or other forms of media. I know that Jay-Z has been vocal on subjects such as racism in the United States, and given his recent protest during the Super Bowl Halftime show which he produced, it’s likely that he has made public comments on these topics as well. With a quick google search, it’s easy to see that Jay-Z has mentioned religion many other times in his music, as well. Researching West’s comments on religion would surely prove to be a fascinating endeavor- it has been well documented that West has recently formed a closer relationship with the Christian faith. As such, it could make for good podcast content to compare his thoughts on organized religion before and after the release of the album “Ye”.  Additionally, Ocean has made some extremely candid remarks on God and religion. As someone who’s open about the fact he’s had a romantic relationship with another man and who speaks frequently about violence against black Americans, Ocean is not afraid to say what he truly feels. Examining the lyrical and spoken remarks of these three artists could help further our understanding of religion’s value for various types of people.

As someone who comes from a diverse religious background, this topic is something that I am interested in. My father is Jewish and my mother is Catholic, which means I developed a pretty unique outlook on religion from a young age (getting presents for Christmas AND Hanukkah was pretty cool, too. As an enthusiast of the artists and the topic, I would certainly be able to examine this song without problem for eleven weeks. I think this topic is important because it’s different than what we’ve discussed in class but something that a lot of people spend a great amount of time dealing with.

I’m not overly concerned with completing this project. I think that the most crucial thing would be to prove that it is a protest song, which the lyrics should help me with as well as other existing public statements by he musicians on religion, like Frank Ocean’s Tumblr post. Since I enjoy the song, artists, genre, and topic I think this would be a successful project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJt7gNi3Nr4