YG album My Krazy Life disappears from streaming services amid Meet the Flockers controversy

Album’s disappearance has sparked a debate over music censorship

Rapper YG’s album My Krazy Life has disappeared from streaming services (Getty Images for BET)

YG’s debut album My Krazy Life appears to have been removed from streaming platforms, following controversy about lyrics in his track, “Meet the Flockers”.

Originally released in 2014, the rapper’s song came under renewed scrutiny over its lyrics about targeting “Chinese neighbourhoods” during burglary attempts.

Last week, YouTube rejected an internal proposal to remove the music video for the song.

Employees had requested that “Meet the Flockers” be removed in the wake of a deadly shooting in Atlanta on 16 March that killed eight people. Six of the victims in the shooting were Asian women.

In an internal email reported by Bloomberg, two executives responded to the request: “Our hate speech policy prohibits content promoting violence or hatred against protected groups, for attributes like race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and expression … In this case, this video receives an EDSA [Educational, Documentary, Scientific or Artistic] exception as a musical performance.”

The executives, whose identities were kept anonymous, said they “find this video to be highly offensive and understand it is painful for many to watch … especially given the ongoing violence against the Asian community”, but explained they wanted to “avoid setting a precedent that may lead to us having to remove a lot of other music on YouTube”.

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However, My Krazy Life has since disappeared from YouTube, along with other digital streaming platforms including Apple Music and the iTunes store, Pitchfork reports.

While Pitchfork said the album had also disappeared from Spotify, at the time of writing, it was still accessible when searched for by The Independent.

It is not clear if this is in response to the controversy, and whether YG’s own team are behind the album’s disappearance.

The Independent has contacted YG’s representative for comment.

On social media, the album’s apparent removal has sparked a debate about music censorship, as angered fans claim hypocrisy by pointing out offensive lyrics in songs by white artists, which are still shared online.

One fan called it “music censorship at its finest”.