On July 31, Big Bang leader G-Dragon uploaded a photo to his Instagram account in which his face is covered in black face paint.  Naturally, this caused a stir.  

Not only was the internet was flooded with comments attacking the pop star for being racist, but two major US media outlets, SPIN Magazine and the LA Times, reported on the photo insinuating there was a deeper political context.

A representative from the singer's label, YG Entertainment, has addressed the issue in an attempt to set the record straight.

"GD was simply wearing different face paint colors and this is a HUGE misunderstanding," the spokesman clarified in a response to SPIN magazine.  "The face paint is only a color variation for his album cover which includes black, white, and red."The response went on to further set the record straight that, "It is in no way meant to be a political or racial statement."

Previously, articles that ran with both SPIN and the LA Times had mentioned G-Dragon's likeness to slain African-American teenager Trayvon Martin, as the K-Pop star's shirt collar covering his head resembles the hood of a sweatshirt.  The murder trial has been a hot topic in the US media since Martin's death last year.

George Zimmerman was accused of shooting the teenager to death in his Florida neighborhood last year after reportedly finding him to be 'suspicious' - Trayvon Martin was wearing a hoodie sweatshirt at the time.

The YG rep also indicated that SPIN's report of the photo as "compeletly wrong and taken out of context" when they compared the image of G-Dragon to a meme that spread around the internet last year including famous artists like Frank Ocean and P.Diddy posting photos of themselves wearing hoodies.

"[The photo in question] is being derived by a simple photo shoot where GD was using different face paint colors for his upcoming album," added the YG rep to further clarify.

G-Dragon will be releasing his second studio album later this month.