Spotify's Lonely Stance Against Alleged Abuse
The streaming service dropping R. Kelly and XXXTentacion from playlists is one of the very few signs of a #MeToo reckoning in the music industry.
“With all artists who have challenges, I believe it’s about the music,” Thea Mitchem, a New York radio programmer, told recently about her station’s decision to play the song “Sad!” by XXXTentacion. is a euphemism, and the challenges in his particular case are accusations that XXXTentacion had beaten his then-pregnant girlfriend. The fact that the 20-year-old rapper is awaiting trial on charges related to those allegations, and that he has of committing violence, has elicited many critics to call for listeners to shun his music. But “Sad!” nevertheless sits at No. 35 on the R&B/hip-hop airplay charts—which would not be possible if radio were boycotting him.
