Joe Rogan has a very popular podcast. It's so popular that Spotify invested over $100 million in him to exclusively publish it. On that same podcast, Rogan has endorsed misinformation about COVID vaccines and made racist and transphobic comments. As a result, Neil Young began a movement of artists protesting Spotify by taking their music (or trying to) off the platform. Soon after this scandal took over the internet, a montage of clips of Rogan using the N-word went viral. One of the artists protesting against Spotify and calling out Joe Rogan's actions was India.Arie, who recently went on Trevor Noah's show to discuss the whole situation, and I think it's a necessary watch!
The interview begins with Arie pointing out that her initial qualm was with Spotify not paying artists fairly for their work. Her goal was never to make "a mortal enemy" out of Joe Rogan. "Spotify is not only the biggest player, but the lowest payer," she said concisely. "Talking about Spotify in particular, you listen and we get .003 to .005 percent of a penny. A fraction of a penny. A lot of people are tired of even having the debate of whether someone should get paid for their work." Yes, this world sucks!
Later in the interview she points out that taking her music off Spotify doesn't benefit her at all, but was a protest resulting from the streaming service's disrespect and negligence—the irony being that she, in a sense, silenced her music in order for her voice as the creator to be heard. And still, she wasn't expecting to be heard. "I'm used to the certain type of treatment from the industry where they don't listen... To be honest, that made it easier to say over the years. 'Well, I'm gonna say whatever, and some people will hear it and some people won't."
Many of the most poignant parts of the interview come about when she's asked about labeling Joe Rogan a racist as she makes the distinction between conscious versus unconscious racism. "Our whole society is built on racist concepts. If you're born into it and you're not actively working to not be racist, then you have some of it in you," she said. "If you know you're doing it and you keep doing it, I would say that is a racist." She goes on to state that Rogan was being consciously racist. "I think he knew there was no context, and that's why he was saying it, because it got a rise out of people. He knew that it was inappropriate. The fact he did it repeatedly and was conscious and knew, I think that is being racist. And I don't like even saying that, because I'm a sensitive old soul. I want to believe the best in people."
And that only covers about half the conversation. Arie and Noah also discussed handling these conversations in private versus the public sphere, accepting that actively being anti-racist is necessary to living in a racist world, and the conflict between labeling someone a racist versus diving deeper into their intentions. "It's one of those instances where, do you put a hand out to a person and hope they don't chop it off or do you stay safe and put your hand in your pocket?," Noah said. "Even if you fucked up, I don't want you to be ostracized into a world that will encourage that behavior only," he later pointed out.
The conversation is an enlightening one that gets into more nuanced thoughts on what it actually means to wield power as a $100 million–backed podcaster. They both advocate for doing the work and having messier conversations. At the end of the interview, Arie excitedly tells a story about meeting her hero Maya Angelou. When she asked the poet what she should do with her life, Angelou's answer was simple: "Just tell the truth."
Watch it all below.
