On Sunday, Lil Pump shared an Instagram video containing an unreleased song tentatively titled "Butterfly Doors." Both Lil Pump's performance in the video and the song itself contain anti-Asian slurs and gestures.
As the rapper dances along while the song plays in the background, he pulls back his eyes during the lyrics "they call me Yao Ming cause my eyes real low." After these lyrics are repeated a second time, Pump comes in with the ad-lib "ching chong," a derogatory reference to the Chinese language. As TMZ points out, Chinese-speaking Instagram users are denouncing the video in the post's comment section.
Lil Pump is just the latest rapper to make the problematic comparison of weed-induced eye squints to the epicanthic folds commonly associated with Asian countries. This July, Wiz Khalifa brushed off criticism of the lyric "Smoke got my eyes lookin' Korean" from the song "Hot Now" on his album Rolling Papers 2. He told The Breakfast Club: "Chill out, I’m not racist. I love all races. I have Korean friends who are not offended, so I don’t know those people who are saying that.
The FADER has reached out to Lil Pump's representatives for comment.
Thumbnail photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for MTV