YG's "Meet The Flockers" Blocked On Youtube Over Anti-Asian Lyrics

Source: Jerritt Clark / Getty

UPDATED: 1:17 P.M. ET, April 6th, 2021***

According to Complex, YG’s controversial song “Meet The Flockers” has now returned to major streaming platforms however the words “Chinese neighborhood” have been censored. You can listen to the edited version down below.

END UPDATE***

A YG song from 2014 has been blocked from Youtube over the inclusion of anti-Asian lyrics.

Only a few days after multiple employees urged the platform to remove YG’s song “Meet The Flockers,” the track has been blocked on YouTube. At the time, the rapper’s 2014 debut album, My Krazy Life–which the song appears on–was removed from both Apple Music and Spotify, though it returned to streaming platforms with a new version of the song with the words “Chinese neighborhoods” censored and removed.

Due to the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans, the song has been criticized for its lyrics about targeting “Chinese neighborhoods” during robbery attempts. A blocked video for the song on Youtube comes with the message: “This video contains content from UMG, who has blocked it in your country on copyright ground.” Because of this, it seems like Def Jam and its parent company, UMG (Universal Music Group), blocked the video themselves.

This follows reports from last week, with workers at YouTube and its Trust & Safety team asking the site to remove “Meet The Flockers” from the platform. After reviewing the track, YouTube said that removing the song would force the site to change its entire policy, leading to more widespread censorship.

“While we debated this decision at length amongst our policy experts, we made the difficult decision to leave the video up to enforce our policy consistently and avoid setting a precedent that may lead to us having to remove a lot of other music on YouTube,” the company explained in an email obtained by Bloomberg. “YouTube has an open culture and employees are encouraged to share their views, even when they disagree with a decision. We’ll continue this dialogue as part of our ongoing work to balance openness with protecting the YouTube community at large.”