On Monday, July 29, 2019, social influencer Preetipls released a music video which responded to the recent and controversial “brownface” ad by E-Pay, where Chinese actor Dennis Chew was depicted to look as an Indian, with darkened skin and all. The police are currently investigating the video, which was reported as having “offensive content”.
Here is the E-Pay ad that prompted Preetipls’ video:
The video in question shows Preetipls, whose real name is Preeti Nair, and her brother rapper Subhas Nair, rapping out lyrics about “(racist) Chinese people … who don’t know their place”.
While it was posted on Preeti’s Facebook account, it was taken down on Tuesday (July 30) afternoon:
https://www.facebook.com/preetipls/videos/514012572668630/
The song, which was a remix of Iggy Azalea’s song, F*ck It Up, was directed at (racist) Chinese people, whom the Singaporean siblings were saying are exploiting minorities for “the brown dollar”.
The catchy rap music video was posted on Sunday, July 28, on Facebook. It was called K. Muthusamy, which is the name that was printed on the name tag of the “Indian” man on the controversial E-Pay ad, who was actually Chinese actor Dennis Chew depicted with darker skin.
Preeti and Subhas rapped lyrics like: “Brown face, brown face/ Everybody wanna be our race/ The new marketing strategy is outrage…”
At the end of the video, the siblings rap about a case where a senior member of staff at Sport Singapore dressed up as a Sikh man.
“How come you so jealous of the colour of my skin,” they rapped.
“No matter who we choose, the Chinese man win,” went the lyrics.
And then it goes: “We in 2019 man/ This shit’s a disgrace.”
The video was also expletive-filled.
In their statement, the police said they are aware of the video, which was reported for its offensive and racist theme. According to the police, investigations are ongoing.
“The Police are aware of an online video that is directed against the E-Pay advertisement. A police report has been lodged against the online video for its offensive content and police investigations are ongoing.
The police will not tolerate any offensive content that causes ill-will between races.”