JAY-Z’s latest music video for “Family Feud” is causing quite the stir among the Catholic community. Following the video’s release, which shows visuals of Jay and Beyonce in a Catholic church, a civil rights and anti-defamation organization has issued a statement in opposition of the rapper’s visuals. The Catholic League claims the video is insensitive and “exploitative” of the Catholic faith.
Catholic League President, Bill Donohue spoke on the organization’s problem with the video, suggesting that it was a “bigoted assault” on the religious community. “Is it anti-Catholic? No, it is not a bigoted assault. Indeed, it pales next to Jay Z’s relentlessly racist (and anti-black) lyrics,” Donohue said in a statement. “But it is nonetheless gratuitous as well as exploitative, just the kind of thing we would expect from this genius couple.” It’s unclear which “anti-black” or “racist” lyrics Donohue is referring to however.
This isn’t the first time JAY-Z has been called out by a religious community. The Jewish community previously accused Hov of anti-Semitism following a specific lyric in “The Story of OJ,” which played on a stereotype of Jewish wealth. When confronted about this controversy, Jay said in an interview with the Rap Radar Podcast that he very rarely pays the criticism any mind. “It’s hard for me to take that serious because I’ve exaggerated every black image in the world,” he said. “If even you, as the Jewish community, if you don’t have a problem with the exaggerations of the guy eating watermelon and all the things that was happening [in the ‘Story of O.J.’ music video], if you don’t have a problem with that, and that’s the only line you pick out, then you are being a hypocrite.”