TDE, Kendrick Lamar's Label threatened Spotify to change their hateful conduct policy
Remember A few weeks ago, Spotify decided to put in place a charter of conduct excluding from its playlists artists with problematic behaviors. In the line of sight, were targeted: Tay-K, R. Kelly or XXXTentacion.
The so-called 'Hate Content & Hateful Conduct' rule was introduced in May by spotify. Following its application, songs by R. Kelly, xxxtentacion, and Tay-K in particular were excluded from playlists generated by spotify. In R. Kelly's case, the reason was the sex scandal in which the rapper was involved. The latter is accused of abusing women and girls in a cult he created. Then, XXXTentacion, would have been deleted because of domestic violence against his ex-girlfriend. And finally the case of Tay-K would be linked to his judicial record of murder.
This action taken by Spotify has been criticized in the music world. Kendrick Lamar's label Top Dawg Entertainment had actually threatened to remove its music from the service in light of the policy. In an interview with Billboard magazine, Tiffith, the label’s CEO, said that the move amounted to censorship and he questioned how the artists were selected.
“How come they didn’t pick out any others from any other genres or any other different cultures? There [are] so many other artists that have different things going on, and they could’ve picked anybody. But it seems to me that they’re constantly picking on hip-hop culture,” - Tiffith said.
Thus, in light of all this turmoil, Spotify now announced in a statement, last friday, that its rule has caused unnecessary confusion, and that banishment due to the behavior of certain artists was lifted. Then Next day, XXXtentacion' music was back in the spotify's popular playlists but R. Kelly's are still not.
"Across all genres, our role is not to regulate artists. Therefore, we are moving away from implementing a policy around artist conduct,” the statement read. “We don’t aim to play judge and jury.”
Spotify, however, will continue to be very strict when it comes to hate lyrics. Spotify will not be allowing any text intended to incite hatred or violence against people because of their race, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation.
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