R. Kelly's streams increase following removal from Spotify playlists
[Photo by: Nicholas Ballasy/Wikimedia Commons]
R. Kelly's streams have increased since Spotify made a move to remove his music from featured playlists.
Read more: R. Kelly’s music removed from Spotify playlists after sexual misconduct allegations
On May 10, Spotify announced it would remove material by Kelly from its playlists after the singer's long history of sexual misconduct allegations has again come to the fore, spurred by Time's Up's #MuteRKelly campaign and related boycott of the musician.
From the announcement date to May 16, R. Kelly's streaming numbers went up, Consequence of Sound reports.
Nielsen Music reports his numbers hit 6,676,000 streamings, increasing a bit from the typical 6,584,000 weekly streams. his music typically receives. The numbers are based on streams from Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora and other music platforms.
According to Consequence of Sound, the increase is minor and can be considered an average but it's still noteworthy. For example, another artist removed, XXXTentacion, saw a daily decrease of 17 percent of streams over the same week.
Spotify's decision to remove Kelly's music comes after a recent crackdown on white supremacist music on the service.
“We don’t censor content because of an artist's or creator's behavior,” Spotify delineated of their decision to pull Kelly's music. “But we want our editorial decisions—what we choose to program—to reflect our values. When an artist or creator does something that is especially harmful or hateful, it may affect the ways we work with or support that artist.”
