February 2, 2022
India Arie Pulls Music From Spotify Over Joe Rogan’s Racially Insensitive Remarks About Black People
While Neil Young pulled his music off Spotify’s music platform over Joe Rogan’s controversial comments on the coronavirus pandemic, soul singer India Arie is pulling her music because of Rogan’s “problematic” language around race.
On Tuesday, Arie took to Instagram to explain why she is joining Young and boycotting Rogan, but over his recent comments about how “weird” he thinks it is to call someone Black or white based on their skin tone.
“Neil Young opened a door that I MUST walkthrough,” Arie wrote in her post. “I believe in freedom of speech. However, I find Joe Rogan problematic for reasons OTHER than his Covid interviews.”
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“FOR ME ITS ALSO HIS language around race,” Arie continued.
She also correlated the debate around what Spotify pays music artists and the $100 million they’re paying Rogan for hosting his podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” on its platform.
“Paying musicians a Fraction of a penny? and him $100M?” Arie quipped. “This shows the type of company they are and the type of company they keep. I’m tired.”
Arie’s statement comes one week after musician Neil Young penned an open letter announcing the removal of his music from Spotify due to Rogan continued sharing of vaccine misinformation. With Rogan’s podcast being Spotify’s most popular podcast of 2021, the platform has been sticking beside him.
Days after Young’s announcement, musicians Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren announced they’re also pulling their music from the platform for the same reason, CNN reports. In response to the backlash, Spotify announced a content advisory icon would be added to podcast episodes where Rogan discusses Covid-19.
But when it comes to Rogan’s past and recent comments around race, they’re often overlooked. Rogan recently sat down with psychologist and climate change skeptic Jordan Peterson where their conversation turned into their take on how Black people identify themselves.
“Unless you’re talking to someone who is like 100% African, from the darkest place, where they’re not wearing any clothes all day, and they’ve developed all that melanin to protect themselves from the sun, you know, even the term ‘Black’ is weird,” Rogan said on the podcast.
On social media, video collages have been shared highlighting Rogan’s past occurrences of dropping the n-word with the hard “er” at the end, jokingly referring to Black people as “Planet of the Apes,” and claiming the most “powerful” combination of genes is when you have “the body of the Black man and the mind of the white man.”
CW: Multiple clips of Joe Rogan saying the N-word.
This is who the right is defending. pic.twitter.com/qqaB12dFYz
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) January 30, 2022
Joe Rogan on hoping to see Planet of the Apes in a “good neighborhood:”
“We walked in to Planet of the Apes. We walked into Africa, dude. We walked in the door and there was no white people.” pic.twitter.com/ENU1XehIzn
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) January 30, 2022
Joe Rogan to a guest who said he has a Black dad and a white mom:
“Powerful combination genetic wise. Right? You get the body of the Black man and then you get the mind of the white man altogether in some strange combination.”
“Black people” have “a different brain.” pic.twitter.com/wxTQIxVy5V
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) January 30, 2022
India Arie is the first Black artist to make a bold public stance against Joe Rogan. She’s receiving mixed reviews in her comments section but so far she isn’t changing her tune.