Sorry not sorry? Siblings in Singapore’s rap row offer ‘subversive’ apology

Preeti and Subhas Nair have released a statement echoing the language used by Mediacorp’s own mea culpa for an advertisement seen as using ‘brownface’

But the island nation’s Home Affairs Ministry has taken a dim view, calling the Nairs’ response ‘insincere’ and their video ‘blatantly racist’

Reading Time:4 minutes

Singaporean siblings’ Pretti and Subhas Nair’s “K. Muthusamy” video. Photo: YouTube

Published: 6:15pm, 2 Aug 2019Updated: 10:19pm, 2 Aug 2019

The two Singaporean celebrities who this week were accused by the government of stoking ethnic tensions through a rap video attacking a racially tinged advertisement have offered an apology that some of their fans described as more of a witty “clap-back” than an expression of regret.

The siblings Preeti and Subhas Nair said in a Friday statement that they were “sorry for any hurt that was unintentionally caused” by their vulgarity-laced video K. Muthusamy, which authorities have banned Singapore-based internet users from accessing.

“Behind the music video is an initiative to provide greater consciousness to consumers, corporations and the many faces of Singapore,” the ethnic Indian rappers said in posts uploaded on their social media channels.

Those words, however, were exactly the same as the apology offered by state broadcaster Mediacorp for the “brownface” advertisement the siblings had sought to criticise in their clip – an adaptation of the latest single by US-based pop stars Iggy Azalea and Kash Doll.

Their rap was a response to an ad campaign for cashless payments that featured a Chinese actor, Dennis Chew Chong Kheng, portraying characters of different ethnicities.

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