It’s easy to credit rappers Kanye West and Jay-Z’s success to beat production and rhyming skills, but what has distinguished them from other artists is their ability to make the listener feel a wide range of emotions through their lyrics. Much like the Greek philosopher Socrates, their messages challenge the mainstream and cause listeners to question the status quo. Musicians have adopted ancient texts in their work, but the modern era of lyricism in Hip-Hop takes these texts one step further. Though the list is long, the song that truly embodies this influence is the duo’s 2012 hit “No Church in the Wild”, which draws multiple comparisons to Plato’s Euthyphro. 

At First Glance

Before we get into the lyrics, look no further than the title- the meaning behind the song is in the name. The “church” is a metaphor for life’s purpose or intent, while the “wild” is the world around us. Jay-Z and Kanye are trying to tell us that life holds no real meaning or purpose and that this “church” is an illusion. The title and the lyrics that follow have Socratic elements serving as a gadfly with taking social conventions and putting them into question. 

Social Conventions Under Critique

We see this concept emerge in the chorus with a series of rhetorical questions:

What’s a mob to a king?

What’s a king to a god?

What’s a god to a non-believer?

Who don’t believe in anything?

In Plato’s Euthyphro, ethical values are in question. Socrates challenges how one chooses to believe in what they do, saying people select their values and justify actions as either moral or immoral based on social conventions. Instead of approaching these conventions critically, people tend to accept them without question. The rap duo and Socrates point out this lack of critique and provoke it by challenging such structures through their words. By asking these questions, Kanye and Jay-Z arrive at a similar conclusion. Much like Plato’s questioning of Euthyphro, the rap duo is causing their audience to reflect.

The duo expands on this idea, asking: 

Is pious pious ‘cause God loves pious?

Socrates asks, “whose bias do y’all seek?”

The lyrics rephrase the Euthyphro dilemma: do the gods love pious things because they are pious, or are they pious things because the gods love them? In the end, what determines being a good person? The rap duo uses this questioning in their perspective of the injustices of the world. In the music video, a mob is attacking authority figures in a similar way that Socrates attacks traditional thought. Incorporating Socratic thought is used as a vehicle to speak on the modern injustices and problems that the rappers see today within our social conventions. 

Justice and Religion: Two Different Things

This emptiness previously explained is further emphasized:

Your love, is my scripture

No sins as long as there’s permission

Comparisons can be drawn to Socrates’ argument with Euthyphro here. Euthyphro only thinks his father has committed an impious action because such action goes against his bias. Therefore, as Socrates says, religion cannot serve as a form of justification. What Socrates, Kanye, and Jay-Z are saying here is that the good and the bad can’t be decided through traditional beliefs. Many figures in power justify actions that some see as immoral based on these beliefs in today’s society. Kanye and Jay-Z use these lyrics to shine a light on these figures. 

Not a Song for the Traditional 

Socrates suggests that the difficulty of associating piety with what the gods see as fair is based on the fact that godly interests or wishes are not anything we could ever understand. Kanye exposes this association, saying, “Lies on the lips of the priest.” Of course, those who consider themselves religious would not suspect a figure like a priest to lie. But Kanye and Jay-Z argue that there is nothing behind the words of a religious figure like a priest because that priest’s beliefs are baseless, implying that the modern powers of today are too.  

Socratic influence in rap music is hard to come by, but “No Church in the Wild” shows how work like Plato’s Euthyphro holds relevance in modern-day struggles. Jay-Z and Kanye West discuss their discomforts with those in power while challenging the very power that they have. After listening to the song, the understanding of Socrates’s original text shifts more towards a blueprint for revolutionary thought that combats authority and tradition.

By Brennan Troy

Author

English Creative Writing Major at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY