Indonesian rapper Young Lex released a new music video, titled Raja Terakhir (The Last King), on YouTube, which has drawn accusations of plagiarism from the fans of Lay Zhang of the K-pop boyband EXO.
According to reports, Young Lex's new music video, which was released on March 2021, carries a lot of similarities to Lay's Lit music video, which came out in June 2020. The fans said that Raja Terakhir's visual styling, choreography and even parts of the music are almost the same as Lay's previous work.
Both music videos also have a scene featuring a computer-generated dragon. The fans believe that the concept and the framing of the shots of the dragon scenes, as well as the elements in the background, are identical.
Apart from the concept, the fans said that the outfit choices between Young Lex and Lay are the same, including the costumes of the background dancers. The locations picked in the Indonesian video are also similar to the places featured in the South Korean version.
As of March 8, Young Lex's Raja Terakhir music video is nearing 10 million views but many of the comments are asking the fans to report the upload for plagiarism. The EXO fans said that Lay and his agency didn't receive any credits for Raja Terakhir. Instead, Young Lex posted comments on his video on YouTube, where he allegedly disparaged the fans of EXO. The comments have been deleted.
In a pushback, the K-pop followers demanded that the Indonesian rapper must apologize to Lay and to his fans. Calls to "Respect Zhang Yixing" trended on Twitter with over 75,000 retweets. Lay's agency, Lay Studio, has been told of the Young Lex's videos but they have yet to issue an official statement on this controversy.
Young Lex is Samuel Alexander Pieter in real life and he has been in the Indonesian music industry since 2011. He earned his star status with songs like "Gas Lah" and "Gue Lo Mereka." The superstar rapper has nearly 3.5 million followers on YouTube and views to his channel is nearing a billion.
EXO also debuted around the same time as Young Lex in South Korea. Lay, who comes from China, joined the K-pop group in 2012 whilst dabbling in acting projects as well. In 2016, the singer/actor released his first solo EP that broke music records in South Korea and China. He is recognized as one of the top 100 celebrities in the Chinese entertainment scene.
