World Cup anthem singer Myriam Fares removes blackface from 2018 video

nme.com:

Rolling Stone). “When Myriam crossed over to become an international artist, it was brought to our attention how this might be offensive.”The statement continued: “It was never our intention to raise any sensitive issue, as we really did not mean any offence, we just wanted to portray the beauty of women from different cultures.”According to Fares’ management, there had been several attempts to re-edit the music video before, however, the requests were denied by YouTube as the platform did not consider the request to be for “a valid reason”.Further, the management team added that they were told “covering a PR issue due to blackface is definitely not a valid reason to request our help in replacing a video” by YouTube.

This was supposedly because its guidelines “clearly state that removal/changes to an important, political, or controversial plot point is not allowed.”Although Fares’ team could have simply taken down the video and uploaded the newly-edited footage, this would have meant that the track would’ve lost the views it had already accumulated.

Ultimately an agreement was made with YouTube, meaning that the problematic imagery could be removed from the original upload.Nearly a minute and a half of footage has been removed from the video, and now it only shows the singer, in her natural skin tone, performing the same choreography.‘Goumi’ sparked controversy almost immediately after its release – with numerous Arabic-language outlets and fans criticising the Lebanese singer for the video. “At no point should it be accepted for a non-black Arab to paint their skin black or appropriate Black culture,” wrote Mille World in 2018. “Certainly not whilst racism runs rampant in most countries, and certainly not whilst the.