Cyrus Langhorne
Chicago singer R. Kelly and Florida rapper XXXTentacion need answers right now. The duo have relied on their teams to publicly get at Spotify for removing them from its playlists.
This week, Team Kells and Team XXX released statements questioning Spotify for specifically targeting them.
R. Kelly's management team responded to Spotify's decision to take him off their playlists, saying the music streaming service's "actions are without merit." pic.twitter.com/YWn8ZmG2VA
— Krystie Lee Yandoli (@KrystieLYandoli) May 10, 2018
a response from XXXTentacion’s team on Spotify's decision to remove him from playlists pic.twitter.com/ivtEDJ2yGS
— Joe Coscarelli (@joecoscarelli) May 10, 2018
R. Kelly personally reacted to rap star 50 Cent coming to his defense.
https://twitter.com/rkelly/status/994676503374786560
Both 50 Cent and West Coast rap veteran Snoop Dogg have reacted to Spotify’s censorship.
Spotify is wrong for what there doing to artist like R Kelly and xxxtentacion. There not even convicted of any thing.
— 50cent (@50cent) May 10, 2018
This week, Spotify issued a statement claiming it would pull music from artists with hate content.
“We are removing R. Kelly’s music from all Spotify owned and operated playlists and algorithmic recommendations such as Discover Weekly. His music will still be available on the service, but Spotify will not actively promote it,” a further statement from Spotify provided to NPR reads. “We don’t censor content because of an artist’s or creator’s behavior, but we want our editorial decisions — what we choose to program — to reflect our values. When an artist or creator does something that is especially harmful or hateful, it may affect the ways we work with or support that artist or creator.” (NPR)
Along with Kells, select content from rap rookie XXXtentacion has vanished from Spotify.
The Times reported that a Spotify representative confirmed that XXXtentacion’s music was also being removed from the playlists. His song “SAD!” is no longer on the popular RapCaviar playlist; Billboard reports that it was there as of yesterday (May 9). (Pitchfork)
