The artist is said to be extremely unhappy with some of the streaming service’s recent policies.
Kendrick Lamar has reportedly threatened to pull all of his music from streaming service Spotify in retaliation to the company’s recent “hate conduct and hateful conduct” policy.
This new policy is described as “When an artist or creator does something that is especially harmful or hateful (for example, violence against children and sexual violence), it may affect the ways we work with or support that artist or creator.”
This new policy has led to the well-publicised removal of R. Kelly from their playlists, but additionally, they have also removed rising hip-hop star XXXTentacion from many of the service’s biggest and popular editorial playlists.
According to The Guardian, XXXTentacion is currently facing various charges, including false imprisonment, witness tampering, and aggravated battery of his then-pregnant girlfriend.
However, representatives of Kendrick Lamar called Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and head of artist relations Troy Carter to express their frustration about this new policy, and the streaming service is reportedly in discussion with both the music industry and civil rights activists about how to adjust these new policies following concern that the first acts affected were black men, while the music of white men with violent histories remained on their playlists.
Lamar’s representatives threatened to pull his music from their service unless something was done about it, but Bloomberg are reporting that Spotify are planning to re-instate XXXTentacion’s music to their playlists.
Spotify has also said that they have no plans at the moment to re-instate R. Kelly’s music.
