Pictured: Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) and Rex Orange County
Music is everywhere. Music is all around us, constantly. At the very heart of culture, music is at the center and forefront of how people relate to one another, how people share experiences, and how people express themselves through art. This art is created by musicians, and for their art they often achieve great fame and fortune, being worshiped by their cult following at every turn.
It’s no secret that many musicians are bad people or problematic in one way or another, whether it be bigotry, sexual misconduct, or some vile crime. Many of the biggest and most influential artists both contemporary and retro, both popular and underground, across genders, race, nationality, and age, have had allegations, convictions, or otherwise reports levied against them regarding bad or malicious behavior based on their words and actions. Consumers and connoisseurs of music are acutely aware of this. Yet, artists that people say are “cancelled” or that have been deplatformed are still getting millions of streams and continuous support from their dedicated fan-bases and the music industry as a whole. So, what’s going on here?
The “Separate art from the artist” argument
If you’ve spent any time at all online engaging in or simply spectating discourse on controversial artists, you’ll see this shared sentiment be repeated over and over again. “Just separate art from the artist.” To better deconstruct and disprove this idea, we must first dissect what this statement means and the ramifications thereof.
The statement suggests that you can detach the artist from the art itself, by means of simply not thinking about the artist’s heinous words or actions, whilst continuing to listen to the music itself. Furthermore, this statement somewhat implies that a musician’s beliefs, predatory or otherwise malicious actions and words has no bearing on the art itself or the enjoyment/appreciation of it by others.
To many, this is a sound argument that allows them the ability to listen to certain artists that people take issue with without having to feel bad from a moral standpoint or be shamed by others as much for listening to said artists.
However, this whole idea fails to take into account many important factors. Those who espouse this idea misunderstand the very nature of music itself and how it functions in our society. Falling into this line of thinking regarding artist detachment is unethical in of itself.
Music as a Pyramid
In a scholarly setting, pyramids are used to give an overview of the musical elements of a specific culture in order to compare to other cultures musically.
Here’s a basic music pyramid:
Notice how Meaning and Function are right there, at the top of the pyramid.
When listening to the lyrical content of a song, evaluate this and consider the element of Meaning and Function. What’s the function of a song such as R. Kelly‘s I Admit? Victimizing himself and a poor attempt at damage control.
The point here is that as art, it is first and foremost the creation of the artist, and as such it will contain the artist’s attitudes and sentiments. You can never truly “separate art from the artist”, the artist’s personality is intertwined with their art, and it is shown through its lyrical content as well as the very performance and composition of the art itself.
Ignoring the meaning and function of music is first and foremost denying the full capacities of music, and secondly, giving tacit approval of whatever the meaning and function may be. By suggesting that the fact that something has a good, catchy melody [and that therefore] the lyrics can be ignored, you are passively accepting the lyrical content.
IshamaelBlack on RateYourMusic
With the discovered information of the real lives of these people, this gives more context to the meaning or function of their discography, which can paint a very different picture. You can’t listen to Antwon‘s jarring sexual lyrics on Dying In The Pussy after learning that Antwon is an rapist. Similarly, you can’t listen to the gut wrenching atmosphere of You Won’t Get What You Want by American noise rock band Daughters after learning of the horrifying abuses committed by the band’s front man Alexis Marshall against his ex, who is also a musician named Lingua Ignota. Sweet Trip’s 2021 album A Tiny House, In Secret Speeches, Polar Equals, goes from being a nice composition of dream pop and a return of the critically acclaimed duo to a harrowing creepy love letter from Roberto Burgos to Valerie Cooper, the two people that comprised Sweet Trip until they disbanded after it was revealed that Roby had been sexually assaulting Valerie, and that he had an obsessive crush on her despite her being a married woman.
The importance of accountability
When faced with this dilemma, proprietors of the “separate art from the artist” argument fly off into the defense that we are all human, and that no human is perfect. This is a flimsy retort at best and at worst this is a justification for horrible crimes committed by artists. Of course, allegations can have different weight based on the action in question, but regardless of this all sorts of malevolent activity should be taken seriously and should be countered. People need to be held accountable for their actions, and accountability is something that celebrities seldom need to confront, since their status and level of wealth and fame shields them from the consequences of doing so. There is a myth that so-called “cancel-culture” is ruining our society, but this is not true. Cancel-culture does not operate in the way that it is often made out to be, and our most popular of artists even if called out repeatedly and convicted of several crimes still have a a massive platform and rake in hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars (e.g. Chris Brown).
To get into the Kanye of it all, (as Brian would say,) there is a common justification that the mental illness or condition that an artist may be suffering from removes an artist’s responsibility for the extent of their actions as their illness has influenced the things they have said and done. While I don’t wish to undermine the struggles of mental illness, it must be noted that this is not an excuse for bigotry. Being bipolar and narcissistic and having trauma in your life (such as the tragic death of Kanye’s mother, Donda) does not make you become bigoted. Even if you are or have been a fan of Kanye and are reluctant to position yourself against him, you must recognize that he is pushing far-right perspectives, perspectives that are not resulting from his bipolar disorder (as many who suffer from being bipolar do not share or espouse such views), but himself.
It’s safe to say that the reason why people make such justifications is due to a pervasive culture of celebrity worship. Everyone who knows Kanye knows that he has a cult following. Up until a couple years ago with the flops of his recent records in sync with his downward spiral, Kanye’s discography was revered and each album in its own right was considered to be a masterpiece by many. Even in online music forums where generally the more obscure and niche is preferred over what’s the most popular, Kanye’s releases often made it onto many people’s charts of their favorite albums and were subject to heavy discussion. People have been watching his every social media post, every little thing he says and does in the public eye, out of obsession.
Kanye’s not the only example of this. Take for instance Lil B, a rapper with an immense and characteristically online following who has had an enormous and undoubted influence on the landscape of today’s hip-hop. Lil B had a practice going on for nearly a decade of posting girls’ feet with his name branded on them. On Twitter, had his account send automated messages to every account that was female that he could find soliciting the branded feet pics. Several underaged girls felt awestruck by Lil B messaging them, a massively respected and praised rapper, and so they sent Lil B the pictures to be posted. I think this one commenter on Reddit put it best:
Because of how much Lil B is respected in hip-hop and worshiped as an underground legend, all kinds of justifications get thrown around in regard to his situation and people set aside their morals simply because it conflicts with the music they like to listen to, and allegations like this are effortlessly swept under th.
“It’s just music”
Some will say that they listen to music and interpret the art to from a perspective of solely their own experiences, not thinking about the experiences of the artist that informed the actual expression. This kind of avoidant, socially isolated approach to listening to music is harmful in that the artist is no longer recognized, and by all accounts artists hold extreme importance to their work and therefore should be always be considered.
The defense of “it’s just music” comes into play here. Music is a lot more than “just music”. Music is a powerful force in our society, and just like any medium, can be used to perpetuate different ideals or espouse ideologies. The supremely disrespectful drill tracks dissing dead teenagers in rival gangs fuel the terrible cycle of gang violence. The use of homophobic slurs in songs increases vitriol and hatred for LGBTQ+ people. There are perhaps hundreds of examples of songs perpetuating negative or harmful phenomena in our society, there’s far too many to go and list them all. But you get the point. Music is never just music.
Music as a vehicle for profit
One huge factor in this whole debate that people conveniently tend to forget or not mention at all is that music is not released to the world simply for people’s enjoyment, but to make money. Artists are looking to profit off of their work. Streaming through platforms such as Spotify or Apple Music have long since become the most common way to listen to music. These platforms are not free, they offer a subscription service and the artists that are streamed on the platform receive revenue from their streams. By streaming problematic artists, you are giving them money and support. You cannot say that you are opposed to an artist or an artist’s actions yet continue to let them directly profit off you.
A common defense against this is that streaming services often pay little, and as result listening to them doesn’t make a reasonable difference. This sentiment is shown in the Reddit comment below, describing how they don’t mind streaming Black Metal musician Varg Vikernes (aka Burzum) despite his infamy as a murderer, arsonist, and neo-Nazi, on account of the money that they would be giving him not “making much of a difference anyway.
The issue with this idea is that it doesn’t take into account how even though streaming services pay little per stream, that money adds up when streamed by millions of people, being streamed thousands of times by dedicated fans. That’s money that’s going to support the artist financially, and can likely enable them to continue their irreverent behavior. If you don’t agree or are opposed to an artist, you have a moral obligation to not support that artist.
We, not just as fans, but as consumers of music, must obligate ourselves to not support predators or bigots if we believe ourselves to be morally good. Of course, there is often issues of awareness, as well as personal details about artists not being known (especially those that are underground or are not very popular), but we can only do our best in trying to be as aware as possible so as to not support detestable individuals and collectives.
The Future
With the advent of the #MeToo movement and an increasing level of care we take when it comes to consuming music, there is hope that there can be some change. No matter what there will still be people that act within their free will as a person and continue to support artists that are bad people, or justify their doing so with flimsy ill-conceived arguments that lack an understanding of media literacy and how music operates in a larger scale. However, we are starting to see changes in deplatforming and holding artists accountable.
We’re beginning to see an unprecedented level of responsibility being taken by the music industry and larger corporations. Just recently after Kanye had made the statement in the above image, Adidas cut ties with Ye, which lowered his net worth from about $2 billion to $400 million, a significant drop and no doubt a big blow for Kanye.
Many others have begun to stop associating with or cut ties with the famous rapper and producer at rates the likes of which hasn’t been seen. I hope that this will set a precedent of zero tolerance to bigotry, and furthermore result in a close re-examination on the ethics of our favorite artists.
Here are some excellent articles and videos that inspired my decision to write about this topic:
Stop streaming music by sexual predators
Rapper Lil B’s Creepy Fetish for Branded Underage Girls: ‘We Would Feel Special’
Daughters Frontman Alexis Marshall Accused of Rape, Abuse by Former Partner
They Believe He Confessed to Rapes in His Rap Lyrics
Ariel Pink Has Always Been This Boring And Stupid
Eminem and the F-Word: Why Does Rap Still Tolerate Homophobia?
SoundCloud Rap Star Kevin Pouya Accused of Orchestrating Gang Rape of Fan
Medhane Faces Sexual Assault Allegation, Responds
Sam Hyde | 1team | bicflame | joeyy Cancellation
A$AP Rocky Visits Rap Radar & Dismisses Ian Connor Rape Charges
Media History and Development 
This is a very thoughtful post! For starters, I love your use of headings, photos, and posts from different social media platforms to visually depict some of the points you were making in the blog. Also, your line of reasoning flowed in a very logical manner, which made it easier to digest all of the information you had in your article. Construction details aside, the topic itself ultimately demonstrates how “cancel culture” is more temporary than it is permanent. Usually, when audiences “cancel” a celebrity, it usually lasts for about a month or so and then everything resumes to normal once that celebrity releases a public statement. For some reason, a manufactured apology is enough to turn the public back on the celebrity’s side. In some cases, what celebrities are being “canceled” for don’t warrant deplatforming. With musicians, I sometimes think it’s easier for them to sort of escape having to take accountability is because they aren’t really selling themselves. Most people who listen to music might know who the song is by, but typically, unless they’re a die-hard fan, they might not actually be able to attach a face to the name (I’m thinking more about artists that aren’t at the Beyonce level here). Whereas with other celebrities, their entire career is based off of who they are or what they look like. If you’re only interaction with an artist is a song that pops up on your Spotify, I think it’s pretty easy for that artist’s behavior to slip under the radar if that makes sense.
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I really enjoyed reading this piece. I absolutely agree that music is an essential part of how we interact with each other and as a society as a whole. The moment you find someone with a similar music taste, you’re able to connect on a different level, music affects the relationships we have. I think that its okay to “separate the art from the artist”, when it comes to listening to one or two songs that are still on your playlist or you really love. The moment I feel it crosses a line with an artist who has been accused of a crime, or has been promoting hateful ideas and you’re still a fan of the artist, still consistently listening to their music, interacting with their social media, and idolizing the person. With the example of Kanye, he has has a problematic history of many racist, homophobic, and overall hateful statements that invalidate his talent completely. I can admit that he is an incredible artist, and there are many of his songs that I love, but no matter how good his music is, he is a bigoted, sick man who truly does need help, because he continues to spread hate into a world already so full of it. When it comes to the topic of artists with accusations of SA there should be no tolerance behavior whatsoever, but I agree that its time to start thinking of these hateful acts from celebrities more seriously. I think with the impact from the companies dropping Kanye show the start of a change for the better.
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Hi AC,
I’m glad you enjoyed reading my article. It’s often incredibly difficult for victims of SA to come out against someone, especially when it is someone with popularity and power that can silence those who want to speak out. It is said that about 80% of rapes and sexual assaults go unreported, and unfortunately many of the artists and celebrities that have committed sexual crimes, even in multiple instances, never got charged with a crime in a court of law (e.g. fashion designer Ian Connor). It’s a shame when allegations are brought up in online discourse, and many commenters will resort to blatant misogyny, victim-blaming, gaslighting, and jumping at the chance to claim that people are lying. Sexual assault is something that should always be taken seriously regardless of “lack of evidence”, which is something that in cases of sexual assault victims are not able to provide aside from testimony of their own experiences. Unfortunately it something that is often dismissed in the face of people not wanting to think of their favorite artists as bad people and consequently the apparent lack of accountability makes it harder for people to come out about their experiences. There is a sentiment especially in the United States of “Innocent until proven guilty”, and this reductionist black & white sort of viewpoint makes it a struggle for people’s allegations to be taken seriously, as this statement implies that someone is innocent until they are punished legally or confess to their crimes.
As ethical consumers of music, by far the most important thing is not just refusing to support problematic or criminal artists, but to hold our own favorite artists accountable as well. You say in your comment, “I think that its okay to ‘separate the art from the artist’, when it comes to listening to one or two songs that are still on your playlist or you really love.” In the past, I’ve been in this very position before, still streaming a couple of songs I loved despite my suspicions about some artists. When you have a favorite song, you are often listening to that same song time and time again. As a consequence, you are giving that song more and more plays which adds up to more streams and thus more revenue for the artist behind it, thus supporting the artist. What I came to realize was that I didn’t want to support the artists behind these songs in any capacity, not even just in giving the artist money but so as to lessen the overall listening-base of the artist. When you listen to an artist, and include them on playlists, that signals to Spotify’s algorithm for those songs to be included in autoplay with other similar songs, and thus more people will listen to it as a result, resulting in more people adding that song to their playlists which results in more plays and more profit for the artist. By continuing to stream a particular artist, that will allow that artist to get more streams from other consumers, the vast majority of which do not know or care as much or at all about the artist’s behavior and how it informs the messages of their music.
You said that the moment that it crosses a line is when an artist “has been accused of a crime or has been promoting hateful ideas,” but what about situations that don’t quite fit either of these two categories? What if it’s not someone who’s not necessarily done something particularly vile themselves, but has enabled, excused, continued to associate with, or otherwise been an apologist for others’ problematic behavior (e.g. A$AP Rocky’s refusal to condemn Ian Connor, despite his 30+ SA allegations). It’s important that nuance isn’t removed when discussing this topic, and so we must acknowledge and deal with these situations in a logically consistent way. Otherwise, we are failing to completely halt our support of problematic artists, and favoring some artists that we have tended to like over over others, despite both groups having ethical issues. I think JPEGMAFIA put it best when he said this: “If you’re only a social justice warrior when it benefits you, then how much do you really care?”
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I really enjoyed this article! I appreciate tackling this discussion from multiple angles and using so many examples throughout your work, while also acknowledging the nuances of this issue. I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot, and have come to think about how in some ways being a ‘walking billboard’ for, say, Kanye West, and defending him incessantly is in some ways worse than being someone who privately streams his music in a critical way – if that makes sense. I think in a day and age where social media is the forefront of information & opinion sharing, and where a reputation is worth its weight in gold (literally), people actively voicing their opinion does more for an artist than just streaming their music. Kanye has been ‘cancelled’ numerous times, but its only because his backlash was so strong this time that he has truly been held accountable for his actions by the brands he’s associated with – an outcome I do not think would happen if people werent so vocal in their disapproval for him. In essence, the need for positive ‘relevancy’ in a digital age makes it more important for Kanye – or any other artist – to be deplatformed in a social sense than a monetary sense. Even though this is a music-centered article, I also think about JK Rowling in this sense, who keeps bouncing back from her transphobic and racist controversies due to the support she has on social media. Anyways, I’m rambling, but your article was just so well written it makes me thinks about the different conditions and nuances of this issue even more than I already was!!!
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I really loved this article. I have found it so difficult to explain to people why you can’t just separate the art from Artist but was never able to put it in such words like you have. I remember being in love with Panic! At the Disco until I heard about Brendon Urie’s horrific accusations of rape, threatening rape to his literal underage audience, and being racist. You will not find a singular one of their songs on my playlist solely for the reason that that is all I can think about when I hear their music, the awful shit they’ve done. I truly appreciate your in depth analysis of how you can’t separate the art from the artist because their beliefs intertwine with the meanings and functions of their “art”. And truly, when going back to listening to some of these artists songs I cringe because the lyrics don’t sound right anymore knowng the things they’ve said and done. Also I’m really glad that you are actually calling out these artists, especially ones we’ve forgotten about like Lil B, and bringing up the scary things they’ve done. A lot of people are scared to in fear of being harassed by their cult followings, which I have seen on tiktok become truly horrifying. Which again was just another great thing to point out, their fans need to be held accountable for supporting and encouraging this kind of behavior even if it is just by listening and worshipping these artists’ music.
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Your point in this article is something I’ve felt for a long time. The art IS the artist. I really struggle to listen to or enjoy music from artists that I know have done horrible things. I think one reason people are so hesitant to cut ties with artists like Kanye or Rex Orange County is that they mourn the loss of what once was. I think this loss carries through the stages of grief. At first there is the shock and denial that your favorite creator has does some heinous act. There are demands of proof and then questions about the proof’s authenticity. And then we get the outrage and sadness on platforms like twitter and reddit. The long threads about how we all should have known and it never should have been a surprise that this artist is a horrible person. This is peak cancel culture, and of course, it dies down as people get off the internet. Next people try to separate the artist from the art as long as possible. Because they still want to see the good there. They bargain and twist things around in their own minds just to make things work a little bit. But of course this doesn’t work either. Finally after a while people realize that the artist is just actually a bad person and quit supporting their music too. This is acceptance. Acceptance is the hardest place to get to and we often circle through the other stages multiple more times before we get there. But we DO get there. Artist like R. Kelly are completely out. People don’t listen to his music anymore because the name behind is is so foul. Even new music he comes out with fails spectacularly because no one is willing to listen. That’s why I have hope that people like Kanye will dissapear forever eventually too. It may take a while, but not matter how hard people try, the can’t separate the art and the artist forever.
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Hi Madeline,
Thank you for your well-thought out comment. I think you really hit the nail on the head in describing how people mourn “the loss” of their favorite artists. In my research online in preparation for writing this blog post (and my eventual final paper), I’ve clearly seen instances in which people in the midst of discourse about cancelled or problematic artists are clearly exhibiting the different stages of grief.
As much as I’d like to believe we all do eventually get to the stage of acceptance, unfortunately I don’t think this is true. Although no one dares to defend him publicly in real life or admit to listening to him, R. Kelly, even with his highly publicized case, conviction, and subsequent incarceration regarding his long history sexual crimes and abuses against underaged girls, his music is still available and officially hosted on streaming platforms, where, as of writing this, R. Kelly still has 4,449,749 monthly listeners. Even though it seems like no one listens to R. Kelly anymore, there are, quite literally, millions of people that still listen to R. Kelly every month. Although his new music has flopped, no doubt due to him losing industry backing, he is still supported by the industry in these platforms continuing to host music made by a pedophile. And he’s far from the only example.
Upon doing research for this blog post, I had looked up if similar articles had been written on the topic. There was, but noticeably nearly all the articles on this topic were written by college students for their own universities’ newspapers or class blogs. There is an alarming lack of care and awareness in the public consciousness in how we consume media, the real effects of our continued engagement, consumption, and the near-religious fervor we have toward celebrities. As a consequence of this, there’s an innumerable number of people that, consciously or unconsciously, succumb to the many arguments discussed in my article that are used to justify listening to unethical artists.
Recently I just encountered another defense whilst I was browsing earlier that I had not seen before. Someone had commented on a thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/GothBoiClique/comments/mb9ddl/comment/gs3knsx/), saying that even though you’re giving money to these artists by streaming their music, you are also supporting many immoral billionaires every time you walk into a grocery store. These of course are not the same thing, and as the reply to that comment put it, “You support those businesses because capitalism gives you no other option if you can’t afford the other options and locks you in a oppressive cycle. This is different, this is an artist [whose] success has no true effect to us.” And this couldn’t be more true. An artist’s musical output is not essential to our lives, we can certainly live without Kanye and other such artists, yet people’s selfishness gets in the way due to how near and dear we hold music to our identities, our memories, and just because we like it.
Does this mean that we are doomed to never hold artists fully accountable? Not necessarily. With the growth of the #MeToo movement and Gen Z’s increased social awareness, I hope that people will begin to examine the artists they listen to more critically, however this can only happen as more articles like this are written so that we can begin to shift’s peoples’ views on media. Once people’s views begin to change, we could potentially start to see real action and policy put into place to hold these artists accountable, and perhaps we could bring more people into reaching acceptance.
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First off, I want to say this was an really enjoyable article to read for a couple reasons. The content was wonderful of course, but the way it was presented with all sorts of embedded tweets and reddit posts, as well as having hyperlinks to everything so we could learn more about specific topics made it really engaging.
So often, I see someone make the argument that lyrics are nothing more than words arranged in a way to sound good, especially in Hip Hop, where you can find some of the most outrageous and concerning lyrics. The fact is, lyrics almost always reflect the artist’s actions or opinions one way or another. I remember having a conversation about music with one of my coworkers back home, who grew up in the 90s, listening to R. Kelly. He mentioned how he can’t listen to those same songs he grew up on now, knowing the truth about what R. Kelly might have been singing about. I also think of the example of Rick Ross, who came under fire for a lyric that seemingly glorified date rape (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/apr/05/rick-ross-bungles-apology-date-rape). He obviously apologized, condemned sexual assault, and assured people he would never do such a thing. However, if all this was the case, why would he write those bars in the first place?
All this is to say, I agree with your points. Separating art from the artist can’t really be done, especially considering how much the art is a reflection of the artist.
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I really enjoyed reading this article, not only because I somewhat agree with a lot of what was said in it but also because of the current issues with famous singers that have happened as of late. I have very strong beliefs towards not listening to music of an artist or watching their movies after it is discovered they have done something outrageous. Whether we like it or not, giving attention to these artists after the bad things they’ve done are released is like not having them suffer the real consequences to their actions, so if you still wanna listen to an artist, do so on an illegal website where they won’t be paid for the amount of streams you’re giving them. We cannot just excuse a person for horrible acts for the simple fact they are famous, because if we did that to everyone, what would the world be like at the moment?
Overall I really enjoyed this article and found it very informational and entertaining.
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Great Article Omar. It is very unfortunate how many celebrities are given a get out of jail free card because of their status. In the ideal world were people have to pay for their actions. However the biggest problem is how deep many of these people are in pop culture. Fans of Ye’s music will continue to listen to it regardless of what Ye does.
In terms of separating art from the artist, people are to either accept the whole truth or deny it. People only have these choices because of how crucial artist/celebrities are in their lives, it is difficult to move on and change. It is all a power dynamic. Celebrities spheres of influence are large and they sway many people to think their beliefs.
Unfortunately I do think that when it comes to people in the music industry. This is because how many songs can often spread harmful messages such as racism, degrading women, and antisemitism. To fully cleanse the music industry means regulating the types of music that is produced as well as the artist that produce the music, and holding them accountable.
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This was a very methodical and well thought out article. I think the way that these artists behave is indeed a problem, and that they truly should be taken accountable for their actions. The tweets from the artists and other related people really hit the nail on the head for me. The segment about it being “just music” is all too true. The amount of artists I’ve seen go down this bad route and justify is by saying “it’s just music” makes me sick. I’ll say it again: this was a very well thought out article
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