India Arie is opening up about why she asked to have her music pulled from Spotify.
On Monday, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter shared in a post on her Instagram that she was taking her music off of the streaming service over Spotify podcaster Joe Rogan’s “language around race.” On Friday, she explained her decision further in an Instagram Story Highlight titled “Boycott,” providing a mashup video from YouTube clips of Rogan saying the N-word approximately two dozen times on his show in the past.
“He shouldn’t even be uttering the word. Don’t even say it, under any context. Don’t say it. That’s where I stand. I have always stood there,” she said. Another video shared by Arie shows Rogan referring to Black neighborhoods as “Planet of the Apes.”
Arie is one of several musicians and Hollywood figures who have asked that their work no longer appear on Spotify, albeit for different reasons — most having cited discontent over the streamer’s role in spreading COVID-19 misinformation through Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. Both Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulled their music from Spotify last week in protest of what Mitchell called “lies that are costing people their lives.” Young’s former bandmates David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash later publicly asked for their music to be removed as well.
In response, Spotify published “long-standing platform rules” for the first time and began adding a content advisory to any podcast that includes a discussion about COVID-19.
Also read
Rogan addressed the COVID-19 misinformation controversy on Instagram earlier this week, saying: “I don’t always get it right. I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view.”