Indonesian Rapper Young Lex Under Fire For Plagiarizing EXO Lay’s Music Video
Fans of EXO‘s Lay Zhang—also known as Zhang Yixing—are furious after discovering significant similarities between Lay’s “Lit” music video and a recent music video by Indonesian rapper Young Lex.
Born Samuel Pieter, Young Lex is a 28-year-old rapper, singer, actor, and internet celebrity from Jakarta, Indonesia. Since beginning his career in 2011, the rapper has amassed 3.37 million YouTube subscribers and 552 million total views. Young Lex’s most recent music video, “Raja Terakhir (The Last King)”, was released in March 2021.
But within hours of the song’s release, K-Pop fans noticed that “Raja Terakhir (The Last King)” appeared to plagiarize “Lit”, a song and music video Lay released in June 2020. According to fans, elements of the music, the visuals, the styling, and the choreography in Young Lex’s music video all bear striking resemblance to Lay’s music video.
One of the most obvious similarities between both music videos is a scene where a computer-generated dragon rises behind a building.
The dragons in the two music videos are similar in design, and both feature a large moon in the background as well as guards holding flags in the foreground. Even the framing of the two shots is nearly identical.
This dance break scene from “Lit” also seems to have been copied in Young Lex’s music video.
From the color scheme and fire motifs to the way both artists are moving, it’s impossible to ignore the similarities.
Even some of the outfits in the music videos bear a close resemblance to each other.
Both outfits in these scenes have the same silver trim, and the backup dancers are all dressed in black. On top of that, the dancing takes place in front of a stone staircase in both videos.
And the similarities don’t stop there. Eagle-eyed fans have spotted numerous other instances of possible plagiarism in “Raja Terakhir (The Last King)”, including the outfit seen on a female performer…
… and another scene featuring a dragon.
Fans found no credit to Lay or his agency in the description for “Raja Terakhir (The Last King)”, which was released to promote the mobile game Three Kingdoms: Hero Legendaris. In a since-deleted Indonesian response in the music video’s comment section, Young Lex stated, “K-Pop fans with MSG brains will say this is plagiarism“. According to Indonesian fans, the term “MSG brain” is used to mean stupid or small-minded.
Since noticing the instances of plagiarism, Lay fans from across the world have called on Young Lex to take the video down and issue an apology to both Lay and his fans. “RESPECT ZHANG YIXING” soon reached the top 10 of Twitter’s worldwide trends with over 75,000 tweets.
RESPECT ZHANG YIXING!
— ً (@EX9SOURCE) March 8, 2021
Lay’s Chinese fans have also been in contact with Lay Studio, the artist’s personal management team. While Lay Studio is reportedly now aware of the issue, they are yet to respond publicly.
