You might have heard that Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are removing their music from Spotify. Add to them Young’s hippy supergroup mates David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. There are other non-musical artists also boycotting. You might have heard the reason for the boycott is that Spotify have been hosting tragically delicate right wing twat Joe Rogan as he and his guests explore the appeal of all things anti-vax. What you might be less aware of is singer India Arie’s reason for boycotting.
She put together a selection of clips of Rogan and his pals using the N word, gratuitously and for apparent comedic effect as well as a little skit about Rogan and a mate somehow ending up in a mainly Black area in an American city which they likened to walking into ‘Africa’ and ‘Planet of the Apes’. You can check all this out for yourself on India Arie’s Instagram (go to the green button, top left above the word ‘boycott’). https://www.instagram.com/
Spotify are paying Rogan $100 million to host his shows. As India states, they can afford to pay this racist a huge fee but insist they can’t afford to pay artists (the majority of whom listened to on the platform are Black) only 0.003 of a dollar per play.
Some things are simple. Spotify, for most of the artists on it is mainly a promotional opportunity, like having your music on the radio. Some huge artists make millions and the major labels who own part of Spotify are also making millions. But those with less than a million regular listeners are making very small amounts. So they won’t miss it.
If you just like the ease of paying for access to millions of tracks, there are other services available (Apple, for instance). These also host Rogan, including Youtube from where the clips are taken. But - and this is the crucial thing for me - they aren’t handing this man one hundred million dollars to spew his hate.
In a world where ‘national treasure’ Jimmy Carr can complain that not enough Roma were murdered in the holocaust and remain on mainstream telly it sometimes seems there’s not a lot you can do to keep things moving forward (and they are moving forward, racism needs defending nowadays which is very different to the 1970s and 1980s when it was mainstream and only attacked by the odd alternative comedian or musician). So here is something. Ditch Spotify - turn it off until they kick Rogan off and apologise.
Essential Info
India Arie image
- 14165-India Arie-6236
Essential Info
India Arie image
- 14165-India Arie-6236
