Santorini. The name alone evokes images of typical ‘Greekness’ – white houses, washed in bright light, perched on steep cliffs, overlooking beaches made out of dark volcanic soil and surrounded by crystal blue waters. For millions of tourists, this is the place to have the utmost Greek experience, tasting the country’s finest wine and admiring the most photographed sunsets in the land.

For rapper Rick Ross, this is also the place to retire to and reap the fruits of a life of drug and women trafficking. At least, that is the premise of his song, ‘Santorini, Greece’, featuring on his latest album, ‘Rather You Than Me’, which was met with enthusiasm,  debuting at number three on the US Billboard 200 charts and gaining critical acclaim within the r’n’b and hip-hop circles.

“Rather You Than Me secures Rick Ross’ slot within the list Top 5 of rap soloists to emerge from the South over the last 20 years, and is among his more cohesive bodies of work to date,” wrote XXL Magazine, while the album’s entry on the website allmusic.com reads: “Ross’ mixtures of outrageous fantasy and sobering reality, side-splitting humor, and piercing vengeance, are intermittently as potent as ever.”

This probably explains lyrics such as “So sellin’ dope was the path we chose/ And now it’s boats and the Belaire Rose/ Rich niggas in the set and stone/ Neck rocky, Sylvester Stallone/ See me in Capri or them Andes/ Santorini, Greece with a dime piece/ My money long, you know I’m out your reach.”

If this is the rapper at his most cohesive, one can only wonder what he would say when he’s delirious. The song, which features samples from Sydney-based pianist Judy Bailey’s 1976 electric jazz opus ‘Colours of my Dreams’, thus becoming a serendipitous link between Greece and Australia, is an exercise in misogyny and glorification of criminal life, with Ross – hailed by MTV as “#1 hottest MC in the game” in 2012 – boasting about the way he can dominate women: “And if I want her back, I come and take her back/ Santorini Greece, I put it on the map.”

Santorini is not that impressed. Even less so, the Holy Metropolis of Thira, Amorgos and Islands, which was surprised to find out that the song’s videoclip – featuring breathtaking views of the island, interspersed by footage of local people interacting with the rapper – was partly shot inside church of St Efstratios in Vourvoulos. A devout Christian, known for his habit of praying before hitting the stage to perform, Rick Ross is not seen using curse words in the video’s church scenes, however he sings and dances in front of the Holy Temple, rapping: “You niggas don’t believe in God/ From this very moment, you should believe in God.”

It is yet unknown how many of the seven million people who have viewed the video on YouTube so far, have converted to Christianity – or got tickets to Santorini, for that matter.

Here is the video in question: