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The removal of R Kelly’s songs from Spotify didn’t seem to affect him too much
Spotify is a really friendly music platform, as you can basically find anything you want on it. However, this happens as long as the music in question respects some policies. Recently, the platform has adopted a new policy blaming Hate Content and Hateful Conduct, which convinced it to remove some music. Based on these new regulations, Spotify has announced at the beginning of this month the removal of some artists from their playlists. The artists in question are R Kelly and XXXTentacion.
Spotify removes R Kelly from its playlists based on hate content
Spotify might be inclusive with music of any kind and belonging to all genres. However, when it comes to the messages it promotes, the platform gets a lot stricter. As soon as it adopted the policy on Hate Content and Hateful Conduct, it felt the need to clarify what this means.
Hate content is any kind of content that incites and promotes hatred. This hatred can be of any kind, but it’s usually directed against specific races, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, disabilities, or religious statuses. Also, hateful conduct is any kind of behavior that promotes such hatred.
The incident has actually increased Kelly’s streaming numbers
R Kelly was a direct subject of this removal as he has recently been accused of running a sex cult. Also, many women have condemned him over the years for being violent. XXXTentacion was also known for his violent behavior, as well as his lyrics that promote aggression and suicide. As a result, Spotify decided to remove these artists from its playlists.
Of course, this situation had a direct impact on the streaming numbers of the two artists. Interestingly enough, the impact was different. After the Spotify removal, XXXTentacion suffered a 17 percent decline in its streaming numbers.
On the contrary, R Kelly suffered an increase, showing the incident with Spotify did nothing to affect his popularity. Before the streaming platform decided to remove his songs, he had an average of 6,584,000 streams per week. Soon after that, the artist saw his streaming numbers increasing, reaching 6,676,000 per week.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
