India Arie is the latest musician to pull their catalog from streaming platform Spotify after Joe Rogan’s recent remarks about race.
“I have decided to pull my music and podcast from Spotify,” the 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.”
The singer then took aim at Spotify, who paid him a reported $100 million to make their platform his podcast’s home.
“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.”
Stemming from a conversation about Eric Michael Dyson’s Blackness, Rogan and co-host Jordan Peterson debated their own whiteness (or lack thereof.)
“If you’re tan then what the f—k am I? Because I’m darker than you. That’s ridiculous,” Rogan said to Peterson.
“Neither of us are white,” Peterson replied. “And he was brown, not Black.”
Rogan continued: “Well, isn’t that weird. The Black and white thing is so strange because the shades are such a spectrum of shades of people. Unless you are talking to someone who is, like, 100% African from the darkest place where they are not wearing any clothes all day and they have developed all of that melanin to protect themselves from the sun, even the term Black is weird.”
