Fact Checking Charlie Kirk’s Claim About R. Kelly and Spotify

Yes, his music is still available on the streaming service.

By
49

In a tweet, Charlie Kirk claimed that while the presence of Joe Rogan’s podcast on Spotify has been controversial, convicted sex offender and trafficker R. Kelly’s music is still hosted by the streaming service.

The post received more attention when it was shared on Facebook and went viral.

Kirk’s comments come on the tail of a number of musicians and other figures pushing for Spotify to remove Rogan’s podcast for Rogan’s promotion of COVID misinformation on his show and the revelation that he’d used racially offensive language in the past. Rogan has a deal with Spotify worth more than $100 million, through which Spotify receives exclusive streaming rights to his podcast.

Following new charges against Kelly in 2017, Spotify decided to remove Kelly’s music from its curated playlists and algorithmic suggestions as a part of a new hateful content policy intended to prevent the promotion of artists accused of misconduct. Spotify later walked back the policy after artist outcry. Spotify now offers the ability to “mute” artists, blocking their music from appearing on your lists. Regardless, Kirk’s claim is true: Kelly’s discography has remained on Spotify that entire time, and is still available to listen to today. 

If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.

49
By
Comments (49)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Good. Spotify shouldn’t take down music just because the artist did something terrible.

    Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    The Bell Tower

    Why can’t we “mute” Rogan then?

    Oh, right. Because he’s a threat to the narrative and information dissemination that certain powers within this country are desperate to retain control of.

    R Kelly just urinates on little girls.

    Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    Evan Donovan

    Joe Rogan's podcast in itself didn't kill people. That's a pretty condescending view of people's intelligence. I know that it's not strictly speaking a violation of free speech for a private platform to choose not to air someone, but if there are no channels through which debate on contested issues can be held, then people will think the truth is being withheld from them.

    I am more concerned about mainstream authorities like Fauci lying in the name of the greater good than I am about Rogan - especially since he also had guests on that supported vaccines.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      The Bell Tower

      I love it when I get to trot out Tocqueville quotes. This tactic is now new:

      “Authors were harried to an extent that won them sympathy, but not enough to inspire them with any real fear. They were, in fact, subjected to the petty persecutions that spur men to revolt, but not to the steady pressure that breaks their spirit. The legal proceedings taken against our writers were almost always dilatory, widely publicized but ineffective; indeed, they seemed less calculated to deter them from writing than to incite them to persist. In short, total freedom of the press would not have been so injurious to the Church as these half measures."

      Collapse
  4. Deleted Comment

    This comment has been deleted

    1. Avatar photo
      David Chen

      You think the people who listen to Rogan and his guests are idiots. Why do you care that they endanger themselves and die?

      Collapse
    2. Mathew A

      "Listening to R. Kelly doesn't kill people. Listening Joe Rogan's podcast has"

      "It's closer to yelling fire in a crowded theater."

      Having respected doctors/scientists that take a contrary view on something they have expert knowledge on it equivalent to shouting "fire" in a theater that isn't on fire?

      Come on, those aren't equivalent at all. You don't agree with him giving those people a platform fine. But no way are those two equivalent

      Collapse
      1. Deleted Comment

        This comment has been deleted

        1. Avatar photo
          The Bell Tower

          A doctor who says the entire pandemic was planned is a fool. No power can silence such speech and even if it could, the kind of people who believe such foolishness will soon find some other dangerous bullshit.

          Shall publishers cease publishing Mein Kampf? A lot of people died for the lies in that book and we are told white supremacy is a grave threat right now.

          Of course, Rogan is not a snuff podcast. This is just hyperbolic nonsense. If people can’t be trusted with inaccurate information, they can’t be trusted with freedom at all.

          And while I’m inclined to agree that many certainly can’t be trusted, there is no regulatory power (private or public) that I trust to control that information. The only weapon in such a war is truth.

          But given the choice, I’ll take my chances with the nut jobs who believe in faked moon landings and stolen elections over the people who think they can control appropriate speech.

          Collapse
          1. Deleted Comment

            This comment has been deleted

    3. Avatar photo
      Frank Lee

      BS. All Rogan did was have on highly qualified guests to discuss their points of view. Rogan just asked questions. Goebbels would be proud of your position here.

      Collapse
      1. Deleted Comment

        This comment has been deleted

        1. Avatar photo
          David Chen

          "In other words, if you are a young male who is vaccinated you have two choices. Option A: don’t get a booster and run a 0.3 in 100,000 risk of ending up in the hospital with Covid. Option B: get the booster and run a 10 in 100,000 risk of getting myocarditis. "

          https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/why-are-we-boosting-kids

          Know who Joe Rogan's audience is? Primarily young males.

          Collapse
        2. Avatar photo
          Frank Lee

          Sorry Pat for my anger and name calling. But you are wrong about this. Go back and listen to the podcast that resulted in the demand for Rogan to be canceled. It is an obvious political attack and an attack on general free speech rights.

          Collapse
        3. Avatar photo
          Frank Lee

          Effing Ministry of Truth BS. I know your colors now. Not a free speech supporter.

          Collapse
        4. Avatar photo
          Frank Lee

          You are a liar sir. He did not.

          The demand to cancel him came after he had two guests on his show.

          Dr McCullough is a cardiologist and he is the most published physician in his field in history.

          Dr Malone owns nine patents on the creation of the mRNA vaccine technology and is at least partially responsible for the creation of the technology that led to mRNA vaccines.

          “Both these people are very highly credentialed, very intelligent, and very accomplished people, and they have an opinion that’s different from the mainstream narrative. I wanted to hear what their opinion is.” Said Rogan.

          Collapse
          1. Deleted Comment

            This comment has been deleted

      2. Avatar photo
        Bill Nelson

        That is a very big step to far.

        Collapse
  5. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    So, this one was an easy one to fact check obviously since one can just hop on Spotify and see if R Kelly’s music is there.

    I guess it’s a mandatory thing for viral posts on Facebook that are political to get fact checked?

    Hopefully this was one of your easiest to fact check Alec!

    Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    Frank Lee

    So...

    The billionaire boys club (BBC) wants the Great Reset globalist project because it means more billions.

    The BBC has their assets managed by Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street etc.

    Those trillion dollar asset management companies own the media. So the BBC owns the media.

    Neil Young recently sold the rights to his portfolio to Blackrock.

    If you think that any of this has anything to do with principles, you are either in on the looting scheme, or are just ignorant to be manipulated by your media feeds.

    This is all about money. Has always been about money. BLM is about money. #MeToo is about money. You are either a producer trying to make money by adding value to the economy. Or you are a looter trying to make money by taking from producers. Or you are a moocher that will sell your loyalty to a looter for some crumbs.

    The BBC and the American political establishment need to destroy people like Rogan because he thinks. The BBC and the American political establishment cannot allow people to think... they need to just be complaint and do what their media feeds tell them to do.

    Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    Frank Lee

    This point of Kirk's is yet another fantastic example in a long list of examples of blaring hypocrisy of the left. However, it does not matter as the left is not attacking Rogan based on any moral principles. The left is attacking Rogan only because of politics.

    Everything the Democrats and their left mob armies are doing is because of their clinging desperation to hold onto their voter demographics. Since Rogan has attracted a large audience of young people that he is waking up from their campus Marxist indoctrination fog, he has become a choice target.

    Collapse
    1. Deleted Comment

      This comment has been deleted

      1. Avatar photo
        Frank Lee

        Whom the Democrat establishment has destroyed in two elections. Joe is a rational thinker who asks questions and gets on interesting guests who are not just partisan hacks, but are other rational thinkers. Rational thinkers threaten the Democrat establishment. Frankly, the armies of woke campus clones are sleepwalking in error supporting the establishment. Rogan is waking them up.

        Collapse
        1. Deleted Comment

          This comment has been deleted

  8. Avatar photo
    Mike B

    I am a big Neil Young and Joni Mitchell fan but hate that they are doing this. At this rate every artist will have have their own streaming service open only to those artists with whom they are in 100% agreement on every imaginable issue past, present, or future.

    I think I'll put Like a Hurricane on the stereo and kick back and listen to a Joe Rogan podcast. Take that, Neil! And take that, Joe!

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Bill Nelson

      Saw Neil at a Lollapalozza about 20 years ago, so he was mid-50s. Long hair, skater shorts, baggy t-shirt. Up and down on the stage, he never missed a note. Awesome.

      Collapse
    2. Avatar photo
      Mike B

      Also Neil, what about Down by the River? If I share a service with you, does that mean I approve of murder?

      Collapse
  9. Jason Runyan

    Ugh! It sickens me when I have to agree with Charlie Kirk.

    Collapse
  10. Avatar photo
    Bill Nelson

    You can go through a lot of music and find artists or songs which are offensive. Remove the Mamas and Papas for the horrendous behavior of John Phillips.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      What did he do?

      Collapse
    2. Deleted Comment

      This comment has been deleted

      1. Avatar photo
        Probably Wrong

        Podcasts don’t kill people, viruses do.

        A lot of the antivax morons go to certain websites to load up on misinformation, perhaps these should be scrubbed from the internet by those who know better. If Robert Malone wrote all his BS down in a book, perhaps it should be burned.

        This is an unwise path.

        Collapse
        1. Deleted Comment

          This comment has been deleted

          1. Avatar photo
            Probably Wrong

            I didn’t say the government would do it. Maybe AWS refuses to host the servers, as do all the other providers. Maybe we de-list the antivaxxer websites from the DNS registry. Maybe Barnes and Noble and Amazon all get together and burn Robert Malone’s opus, The Hypothetical Guide to Why Vaccines Are Evil.

            Censorship is censorship, and while it is not always inherently evil, it is always risky, and should be embarked on with a lot more humility than the immediate leap to, “people are dying, something must be done!”

            And anyway, the fact pattern strikes me as unlikely wherein someone was still unvaccinated in December 2021 after months of vax availability in the West (where most Rogan viewers live), but was totally just about to go get a shot, then saw Rogan’s podcast and for the first time encountered vaccine conspiracy nonsense, then cancelled the vaccine that they had been putting off for months, then got Covid and died. Really? You think that happened to a hundred people? Ten? Even one? Maybe, but it seems superficially implausible that you could even suppose that causal link, much less prove it.

            Plenty of people who will talk a big game on Twitter about the evil conspiracy of the vaccines or whatever don’t mention that they got the shot back in August or whenever, and the ones that didn’t were locked into their viewpoint long before Joe Rogan was talking to the crackpots.

            Holding Spotify morally culpable for deaths is logically tenuous, extremely unlikely to be effective as a public health measure (as an aside - think how Malone’s profile has now been raised globally by this controversy trying to ban his nonsense), and runs all the risks that moral panicky censorship crazes always do. On net, a very bad idea.

            Collapse
    3. Avatar photo
      Mike B

      Right! There is no bottom to this well.

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Bill Nelson

        Yeah, as a conservative I know that people are flawed. Which is why it is paramount to protect civil liberties, particularly speech.

        Collapse
      2. Avatar photo
        PaulH

        Yes, and one can always find a justification to ban someone based on the idea that their statements might have somehow, someway hurt someone. Either one believes in a culture of free speech or one doesn't.

        Collapse
Load More