Even Moscow City Hall told rapper Timati to delete his awful pro-mayor music video

Three sources told the BBC Russian Service that Moscow City Hall demanded that the rappers “Timati” (Timur Yunusov) and “Guf” (Alexey Dolmatov) delete a music video they published this September, on the eve of hotly contested local elections.

The song, which fast became the most-disliked video ever shared on Russian-language YouTube, praised Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin and insulted the anti-government opposition with embarrassingly awkward lyrics like “Moscow’s the city where they don’t stage gay parades,” “I don’t want protests and I don’t bullshit,” and “I’m slamming back burgers in honor of Sobyanin.” Within two days, the video had more than 1 million dislikes and just 62,000 likes, with more than 3.1 million views.

Guf soon apologized for the song, claiming to have been unaware that Moscow was holding “mayoral elections [sic],” and Timati later deleted the original video from YouTube, saying that he didn’t want to “perpetuate this wave of negativity.”

Sources inside City Hall told the BBC that the song was Timati’s own initiative. The rapper’s business partner Pavel Kuryanov also says he asked Timati to take down the music video, warning that the song’s lyrics insulted certain groups of people and could lead to a backlash against “Black Star,” Timati’s corporation, which also sells the burgers he infamously “slams back” in the mayor’s honor.