On Sunday, the music video was removed from Balvin’s YouTube channel. Neither Balvin nor Tokischa have released an official statement.
The removal of the music video also came less than a week after Colombia’s vice president and chancellor Marta Lucía Ramírez said the visual was “sexist, racist, machista, and misogynistic.”
“In his video, the artist uses images of women and people of Afro-descendants — population groups with special constitutional protection — whom he presents with dog ears,” she wrote in an open letter published on Oct. 11. “In addition, while walking, the singer carries two Afro-descendant women tied with neck chains and crawling on the floor like animals or slaves. As if this were not enough, the lyrics of the song have direct and openly sexist, racist, machista, and misogynistic expressions that violate the rights of women, comparing them to an animal that must be dominated and mistreated.”
In the letter, she publicly encouraged Balvin and the music industry to sign a petition that “includes various commitments for the promotion of women’s rights in music and prevention of violence against them.”
Although the audio track for “Perra” is still live on YouTube, Billboard cannot confirm if the official music video was taken down by the artist or the video-sharing platform.
Billboard reached out to YouTube for comment but did not hear back at press time.
