Despite Spotify’s decision to institute a policy against hate content, aka anti-R. Kelly music policy, streaming of Kelly’s music have reportedly increased.
ABC News reports that R. Kelly’s streaming numbers have remained steady and even shown growth in some cases:
Before the announcement, he averaged 6,584,000 weekly streams for the year. But from May 10 to May 16 he garnered 6,676,000 streams for the week, according to Nielsen Music.
R. Kelly’s streams have grown steadily in the last two years: His music averaged 4,709,000 weekly streams in 2016 and 5,666,000 weekly streams in 2017. So far for 2018, he is averaging 6,674,000 weekly streams. While R. Kelly’s streaming has grown, his numbers are small in comparison to Drake, 2017’s most streamed artist: He averaged 112,735,000 weekly streams last year.
Nielsen Music’s numbers are based on audio streams from Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora and other music platforms.
In a prepared statement clarified their position by stating his music will remain on the service but won’t be actively promoted.
“We are removing R. Kelly’s music from all Spotify owned and operated playlists and algorithmic recommendations such as Discover Weekly. His music will still be available on the service, but Spotify will not actively promote it. We don’t censor content because of an artist’s or creator’s behavior, 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 or creator.”