UPDATE: YouTube Admits It “Mistakenly” Removed Melbourne Band’s Controversial Music Video
ORIGINAL STORY: Melbourne doom duo Divide And Dissolve have had a music video removed from YouTube, after it was criticised by a number of politicians and media outlets.
The clip, created for the outfit’s recent single ‘Resistance’, depicts band members Takiaya Reed and Sylvie Nehill spraying urine-coloured water on monuments to colonial figures like Captain James Cook and John Batman. It also shows them spitting on one of the monuments.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp told 3AW the video made her feel “aghast at the disrespect for our history”, while Australian Conservatives Senator Cory Bernardi described the clip as showing “an unsettling disrespect for our history and traditions”.
The Daily Mail, which incorrectly reported the duo used real urine in the video, deemed the clip “shameful” and “disgraceful”.
In a takedown notice sent to Divide And Dissolve and obtained by Music Feeds, YouTube says the video was deleted after being found to “violate” the service’s Community Guidelines. Read the notice below.
Divide And Dissolve have told Noisey they have received death threats and threats of violence in response to the video.
In a statement to Music Feeds, the band say their art “includes decolonising, decentralising, disestablishing, and destroying white supremacy”.
“With our video for ‘Resistance’ we are drawing attention to the memorialisation of genocide, slavery, rape, murder, cultural genocide, and ecocide,” they say.
“The people commenting with hate are clearly displaying the fact that we do not live in a society free from white supremacy, and are perpetrating everything we stand against.”
Divide And Dissolve have previously had their music video for ‘Black Vengeance’ removed from YouTube. It depicted the duo spitting fluid into each other’s mouths.
While the videos for ‘Resistance’ and ‘Black Vengeance’ have both been pulled from YouTube, they are still available to view via Vimeo, below.
Divide And Dissolve’s latest album Abomination was released in February.
Music Feeds has contacted YouTube for comment.
YouTube Takedown Notice Sent To Divide And Dissolve (Supplied)
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