Spotify has some serous explaining to do. Back on May 10th, music streaming giant Spotify announced a new ‘Hate Conduct Policy’, a movement by the company to remove any artist that was tied to domestic or sexual misconduct, amongst other hateful acts. In the wake of the new policy, big name artists like XXXTentacion and R. Kelly, along with comedians Bill Cosby and Louis C.K., have been removed from the platform. But it’s the artists that haven’t been removed that’s creating a buzz.
Under Spotify’s new ‘Hate Conduct Policy’, their focus is to remove any artists with violent or disparaging conduct. People have been quick to point out that Spotify has failed to remove star Chris Brown from the platform. It’s not only that Spotify hasn’t removed Chris Brown, but have actually added his music to some of the platform’s biggest playlists.
According to Chartmetric.io, a playlist tracking site, Chris Brown’s song ‘Pills & Automobiles’ was added to the playlist ‘Get Turnt’ on May 3rd. The ‘Get Turnt’ playlist garners nearly 3.8 million followers, the 12th largest playlist on Spotify. Furthermore, Spotify added Chris Brown songs to the playlists ‘Signed XOXO’ (1.22 million followers) and ‘Hip-Hop Central’ (572k followers) on May 10th, the exact same date as the ‘Hate Conduct Policy’ announcement.
Clearly, this stuck a chord with many people. Chris Brown has been convicted of numerous violent crimes, a felony assault, and well publicized domestic incidents involving ex-girlfriend Rihanna. Brown is also straight up banned from Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. He’s also currently battling a lawsuit from a woman who claims she was gang-raped at one of the singer’s parties.
Spotify has yet to remove the Chris Brown songs from the playlists, let alone the artist from the platform all together. It’s well known that Chris Brown is one of the biggest music stars on the planet, which begs the question “can Spotify afford to lose Chris Brown?” R. Kelly is way past his prime. He’s not a big hit to Spotify if they lose him. XXXTentacion is a rising star who doesn’t have the following Chris Brown does. Another affordable loss. But Chris Brown on the other hand has fans all over the world. His music is on some of Spotify’s biggest playlists. Losing him would mean losing a massive amount of followers.
Just because Chris Brown is more popular and has more followers doesn’t change the fact that what he has done in the past doesn’t hold the same weight as the others Spotify removed. Don’t give a man who has committed heinous crimes preferential treatment just to keep your followers. Again, Spotify, you have some serious explaining to do.
