Keep That Same Energy
When Spotify announced that it was removing R. Kelly from its playlists last week, my first reaction was that the music service was riding a wave and not really interested in doing the right thing. The announcement was the result of a new policy against “hate content and hateful conduct”, but if the people at Spotify were really committed to the cause, they would have removed at least a few dozen other artists from their playlists, including Eminem, who once made a racist ass song about black women and essentially made a career out of being a hateful pig.
Fortunately, I am not alone in feeling this way. Women’s rights group Ultraviolet has written an open letter to Spotify, asking the company to cancel a few other artists, including Eminem, Chris Brown and Steven Tyler. The group’s co-founder and executive director, Shaunna Thomas, explains why removing these accused abusers is necessary:
Every time a famous individual continues to be glorified despite allegations of abuse, we wrongly perpetuate silence by showing survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence that there will be no consequences for abuse. That has a cultural effect far beyond one individual
artist.
Spotify should have kept it simple and just said that it wanted to be part of the #MuteRKelly movement, but thankfully, the music service overplayed its hand and made broad a statement about hateful content and conduct. And now, we want them to keep that same energy with all of the artists on their playlists.
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