#11: CL’s MTBD Controversy
Racist Moments of KpopAs one of the more highlighted incidents in the media, most people are quite familiar with this one. However, if you’ve been living under a rock for some time, let’s summarise. Near the beginning of this year, 2NE1 released their albumCrush which featured a solo track by CL, “Mental Breakdown”. Seems harmless enough right?
However, a few days after release, YGuploaded a video onto YouTube of a live performance of the song, which is where things got pretty ugly. A portion of the backing track included a melodic recital of a verse from the Qur’an, allegedly taken from a video of a young Muslim boy actually reciting the verse in a manner which may sound like singing to those who are unfamiliar, but is in fact a very common way to read it. Due to the seriousness of the issue, YG proceeded to edit the video with some more appropriate adjustments as heard in the performance video below, after admitting that it sampled a portion of another track. Unfortunately, despite their attempts, the damage was still done.
On the other hand, from a non-Muslim perspective, it is reasonable to have an inclination to feel that the response was an overreaction, as it is difficult to fully comprehend the faith of an individual and their reaction to such incidents as an outsider. The racist comments, death threats and attacks on each other’s religion, I think we can all agree, were entirely unnecessary.
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