Spotify has reportedly removed 70 episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience that see the comedian using racist slurs.
However, the controversial episodes about vaccine misinformation are still available to listen to despite Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removing their music from the platform.
Yesterday (February 4) India.Aria shared a compilation of clips that featured Rogan using the N-word repeatedly and describing a Black neighbourhood as being similar to the Planet Of The Apes movie.
Earlier in the week, the singer announced they too were pulling their music from Spotify, citing their hosting of Rogan’s podcast and his “language around race” as the reasons why.
#DeleteSpotify Clarity: Artist give their LIVES making music that streams for a 28th of a penny. Yes 28th of a penny. And Joe Rogan is paid millions? THIS IS AN ABUSE. thank you @neilyoung for your activist spirit.
— India.Arie (@indiaarie) January 29, 2022
In response, it appears as if Spotify has quietly removed several episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Following the resurfaced clips, Rogan took to Instagram to apologise. “There’s been a lot of shit from the old episodes of the podcast that I wish I hadn’t said, or had said differently. This is my take on the worst of it,” he wrote in the caption for the 6-minute video.
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He started by saying this was “the most regretful and shameful thing I’ve had to talk about publicly,” before going on to say the compilation shared by India.Aria is made of clips “taken out of context of twelve years of conversations on my podcast.”
“I know to most people, there’s no context in which a white person is ever allowed to say that word and I agree with that now. I haven’t said it in years.”
He goes on to explain why he used the word (“I was quoting a Lenny Bruce bit, I was quoting a Paul Mooney bit, I was talking about how Quentin Tarantino used it repeatedly in Pulp Fiction) and how “there’s not another word like it in the English language where only one group of people are allowed to use it. If a white person says that word, it’s racist and toxic but a black person can use it and it can be a punchline, a term of endearment, lyrics to a rap song, it can be a positive affirmation but it’s not my word to use.”
“I’m well aware of that now. I never used it to be racist, because I’m not racist. Whenever you’re in a situation where you have to say ‘I’m not racist’, you fucked up” and I clearly have fucked up”
Rogan goes on to say that there’s nothing he can do to take back repeatedly using the n-word. “I wish I could.
“I would never want to offend someone for entertainment for something as stupid as racism. If anything, perhaps this can be a teachable moment for anyone who doesn’t realise how offensive that word can be coming out of a white person’s mouth. My sincerest apologies, it makes me sick just watching that video.”
Rogan took to social media on Monday (January 31) to publicly address the backlash over the vaccine misinformation.
He told fans on Instagram: “I don’t always get it right. I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view.”
Of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell’s departure from Spotify, Rogan added: “I’m very sorry that they feel that way. I most certainly don’t want that. I’m a Neil Young fan, I’ve always have been a Neil Young fan.”