His music will still be available to listen to, but it won’t appear in any playlists.
In recent years, R Kelly has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault. In 2007 he was cleared of videotaping himself taking part in sexual acts with a minor, but accusations have continued to follow the R&B singer. In 2017, Buzzfeed reported that he was holding women against their will in an alleged “cult”, and last month a former partner alleged he intentionally infected her with a sexually transmitted disease, and a BBC documentary brought more attentions to the allegations.
Following the growing Me Too movement, there have been calls for a boycott of his music and concerts, and the #MuteRKelly hashtag has been spreading on social media.
Now Spotify have announced that they will no longer be including any of R Kelly’s songs in their editorially or algorithmically created playlists. His music will remain on the streaming service, but you will have to search for it manually, but this means it will not appear in playlists like the Discover Weekly or New Music Friday, or any of those put together by Spotify staff.
Spotify said in a statement that it was an editorial decision, and they did not want to censor any content because of a singer’s personal life.
The statement to Billboard read:
“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. 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.”
