Even though Kenya’s first gay-themed music video was banned by the film board — or perhaps due to the ban, because that’s how we do — it’s proven to be massively popular with audiences.
Because the video features a scantily clad man and his boyfriend in bed and two women kissing on a park bench, it was denied a license for release.
Pink News reports the song is a remix of the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s 2012 hit “Same Love.”
It was remixed by Kenyan rapper Art Attack.
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Though it was only posted three weeks ago, it’s already been viewed on Youtube over 120,000 times. The hashtag #kenyangayvideo is also inspiring heated debate in Kenya.
“We expected that this will create controversy,” the artist told Reuters. “We expected that a lot of people will talk about it but we didn’t expect the amount of publicity it has received. The erotic scenes were meant to show that these people also fall in love.”
In a news conference, Ezekiel Mutua from the film classification board said the video “currently circulating on YouTube consists of lyrics that strongly advocate for gay rights in Kenya, complete with graphic sexual scenes between people of the same gender, as well as depiction of nudity and pornography.”
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