A few weeks ago, Spotify announced a new hate content and hateful conduct policy which resulted in the removal of R. Kelly and XXXTentacion's music from Spotify-curated playlists and other editorial promotions, though the music was not removed from the streaming service itself. They faced some backlash over the selective implementation of the policy, and a Bloomberg report from last week indicated that Spotify was in the process of walking back its policy after criticism from employees and music industry power players, including Kendrick Lamar, who threatened to remove his music from the streaming service.
Today, Spotify has officially rescinded the policy, issuing a memo addressing its shortfalls. "While we believe our intentions were good, the language was too vague, we created confusion and concern, and didn't spend enough time getting input from our own team and key partners before sharing new guidelines," it reads.
Earlier this week, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said that the service "could have done a much better job" at rolling out the policy.
In a new interview with Billboard, Top Dawg CEO Anthony Tiffith confirmed that the label threatened to pull Lamar's music over the censorship concerns raised by the conduct policy. He said:
I don't think it's right for artists to be censored, especially in our culture. How did they just pick those [artists] out? How come they didn't pick out any others from any other genres or any other different cultures? There [are] so many other artists that have different things going on, and they could've picked anybody. But it seems to me that they're constantly picking on hip-hop culture.
Read that full interview here.
As of right now, an XXXTentacion song is back on Spotify's prominent RapCaviar playlist.
