Musician who pulled music from Spotify over Joe Rogan anti-vax row posts videos of him using N-word
India Arie has shared resurfaced clips of Spotify’s premier podcaster Joe Rogan repeatedly using the N-word after pulling her discography from the popular streaming platform.
The Grammy-winning R&B songstress posted the problematic clips Friday afternoon, while explaining why she decided to part ways with the world’s most popular streaming service and calling for her followers to ‘delete Spotify,’ using the hashtag.
‘Hey ya’ll,’ the 46-year-old singer says in the first of a series of stories posted to her Instagram account. ‘I’m going to leave a short message here about why I decided to ask my music be pulled off of Spotify.
‘Check this out,’ Arie adds, before relaying a barrage of more than 20 clips of the longtime UFC commentator using the slur on his podcast – which then were posted to YouTube before Rogan signed with Spotify in 2020 – over the years, on several separate occasions, to her nearly 1million followers.
‘You know, the n***** thing,’ the former Fear Factor host can be heard saying in one of the snippets of the slur-filled supercut.
‘Boy, he’s a n*****,’ Rogan says in another snippet recorded on an old set of his long-running podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience – now the most listened to program on the Swedish streaming service.
In total, Rogan utters the word 24 times in 23 separate clips, which were recorded before the host left his longtime platform on YouTube for a $100million exclusive deal with Spotify in 2020.
‘He shouldn’t even be uttering the word,’ Arie asserts after airing the contentious compilation. ‘Don’t even say it, under any context. Don’t say it. That’s where I stand. I have always stood there.’
The series of posts from the singer follows her recent announcement that she would leaving Spotify this week, citing the platform’s hosting of Rogan’s podcast and his ‘language around race’ as the reasons why she pulled her music from the platform.
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India Arie shared resurfaced clips of Spotify’s premier podcaster Joe Rogan repeatedly using the N-word, after pulling her discography from the popular streaming platform earlier in the week
Rogan – who can be heard uttering the slur more than 20 times in a supercut of clips from old episodes of his popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience – had already come under fire by critics who say the star spreads ‘misinformation’ about the COVID and its vaccine on his show
The series of posts from Arie follows her announcement earlier in the week that she would leaving Spotify, citing the platform’s hosting of Rogan’s podcast and his ‘language around race’ as the reasons why she pulled her music from the platform
‘I was actually, to be honest with you, surprised that my statements were picked up, because I thought people weren’t really going to listen to me, because that’s what I’m used to in the industry,’ she said, ‘but I am glad that I am being heard – and for that reason, I wanted to clarify my statements.’
Arie offers her followers another explicit clip of the longtime comedian, where he jokingly referred to a movie theater in a predominantly black neighborhood as ‘Planet of the Apes.’
In the snippet, Rogan can be heard telling two of his guests about an occasion where he took a cab with a friend to a movie theater airing ‘Planet of the Apes’ in a neighborhood the podcaster categorized as having ‘no white people.’
In the clip, Rogan recalls how he told the cabbie to take him to a theater he had never been to, to which the driver agrees.
‘”Is that in a good neighborhood?”‘ Rogan remembers asking.
‘He goes, “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” – the guy barely speaks English,’ Rogan says, mimicking a foreign accent when recounting what the driver said.
He continues: ‘He takes us there, we get out, and we’re giggling, “We’re going to see Planet of the Apes!” – and we walk into The Planet of the Apes. We walked into Africa. We walked in the door and there was no white people.’
In a series of videos and text posts, Arie explained that she did not want her work to help fund Rogan, and chided Spotify for continuing to support him
Arie joined a number of other artists who have elected to remove their music from the service because of comments made by Rogan on his podcast.
Most notably, renowned singer-songwriter Neil Young announced his exit from the service, citing ‘misinformation’ Rogan has spread about COVID-19, with artists like Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash also following suit.
Arie added that Young voicing his concerns encouraged her to come forward with her own complaints.
The resulting boycotts from the multiple musicians that have followed Young’s example saw Spotify lose $2billion in market value this week.
‘I empathize with the people who are leaving for the COVID disinformation reasons – and I think that they should. I also think that Joe Rogan has the right to say whatever he wants to say,’ Arie says, before adding, ‘I also think that I have the right to say whatever I want to say.
‘Spotify is built on the back of the music streaming, so they take this money that’s built from streaming and they pay this guy $100million but they pay us .003 percent of a penny? Just take me off! I don’t want to generate money that pays this.
‘Just take me off. That’s where I’m at.’
The songstress urged her followers to delete Spotify, citing the org’s support of Rogan – their most popular podcaster
‘He shouldn’t even be uttering the word,’ Arie asserted after airing the contentious clips. ‘Don’t even say it, under any context. Don’t say it. That’s where I stand. I have always stood there’
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek first responded to the controversy surrounding Rogan’s comments regarding COVID and vaccines against the deadly virus in an official statement on Sunday, saying Spotify would be adding COVID-19 content advisories to all podcast episodes that cover the virus.
‘This advisory will direct listeners to our dedicated COVID-19 Hub, a resource that provides easy access to data-driven facts, up-to-date information as shared by scientists, physicians, academics and public health authorities around the world, as well as links to trusted sources,’ the statement said.
On Thursday, the Swede pushed back at employees demanding Rogan be ousted from the service’s catalogue, saying the controversial podcaster is vital to the platform’s future and it’s not the company’s place to ‘dictate the discourse’ of his show.
‘There are many things that Joe Rogan says that I strongly disagree with and find very offensive,’ Ek said at a company town hall on Wednesday, according to a transcript published by The Verge.
But ‘if we want even a shot at achieving our bold ambitions, it will mean having content on Spotify that many of us may not be proud to be associated with.’
‘Not anything goes, but there will be opinions, ideas, and beliefs that we disagree with strongly and even makes us angry or sad,’ he added.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told employees the company ‘wouldn’t be where it is today’ if it hadn’t moved into podcasts like the one hosted by Joe Rogan
Rogan took to social media on Monday to publicly address the backlash he is facing for his controversial comments regarding COVID, in a post discussing ‘some of the controversy that’s been going on over the past few days.’
He told fans on Instagram: ‘I don’t always get it right. I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view.’
Speaking on Young and Mitchell’s departure from Spotify, Rogan stated: ‘I’m very sorry that they feel that way. I most certainly don’t want that. I’m a Neil Young fan, I’ve always have been a Neil Young fan.’