Apple Censoring Explicit Songs

Are these songs that are in your personal library and that you copied into your iPhone via iTunes? Or are these songs that you are listening to via monthly subscription?

If they are subscription songs, you never had a copy of them on your iPhone. All you pay for is permission to listen as much as you want as long as you keep paying. It is like having a monthly subscription to a jukebox. Just as with the jukebox, you can listen as much as you want, but you can't stop the jukebox owner from changing the records inside that jukebox. Likewise, it is possible that Apple changed the version of the song offered in their library from the explicit version to the sanitized version.

If you think this is what happened, you can send feedback to Apple and ask them to restore the explicit version alongside the sanitized version. Good luck.

In what way are they not explicit? Are the words different, or certain words just cut out?

Also, make sure your not listening to the clean version of the song. Lots of artists make explicit and non explicit versions of their songs.

Try rebooting => Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

If no joy, backup locally and then try and test => Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings - Apple Support

Maybe the songs are clean right from the start.