Source: David Crotty / Getty
India.Arie is the latest artist to call for all of her material to be removed from Spotify over Joe Rogan’s comments about the COVID-19 vaccine and “language around race” on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.
“I have decided to pull my music and podcast from Spotify,” the “Ready for Love” singer wrote. “Neil Young opened a door that I MUST walk through. I believe in freedom of speech. However, I find Joe Rogan problematic for reasons OTHER than his Covid interviews… FOR ME ITS ALSO HIS language around race. What I am talking about is RESPECT – who gets it and who doesn’t. Paying musicians a Fraction of a penny? and HIM $100? This shows the type of company they are and the company that they keep. I’m tired.”
Arie is also asking for her podcast, “SongVersation,” be removed.
Rogan was accused of spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine and saying the government was discouraging use of COVID-19 alternative treatments. Neil Young initially called Spotify out for keeping his podcast on their platform and requested that his catalog be removed. After they obliged, Joni Mitchell made the same request.
Rogan recently made strange comments on what it means to be Black on his podcast as well.
“There’s such a spectrum of shades of people,” he said. “Unless you’re talking to someone who is, like, 100 percent African, from the darkest place, where they are not wearing any clothes all day and they’ve developed all that melanin to protect themselves from the sun, you know, even the term Black is weird. When you use it for people who are literally my color, it becomes very strange.”
Spotify isn’t removing Rogan’s podcast and instead will be stamping his episodes with content advisory warnings.
“We have had rules in place for many years but admittedly, we haven’t been transparent around the policies that guide our content more broadly,” Spotify CEO David Ek said. “Based on the feedback over the last several weeks, it’s become clear to me that we have an obligation to do more to provide balance and access to widely-accepted information from the medical and scientific communities guiding us through this unprecedented time.”
