Colin Smith
Angel Deradoorian has confirmed that she has removed her music from Spotify in protest over CEO Daniel Ek’s investment in a military drone tech company. Deradoorian, who was a member of Dirty Projectors until 2008, elaborated on her decision in an Instagram post shared on Tuesday while urging fans to listen to her music, including this year’s Ready For Heaven, on alternative platforms.
“This slow erosion for years of our perceived ownership over our music – and the way its profits were used – was now too egregious to ignore,” she wrote. She later added that she may return her music to Spotify in the future “if there is a time where it feels safe and fair.”
Spotify’s Ek joined the board of Helsing, a defence technology company based in Munich, in 2021 when his investment fund Prima Materia put $116m into the company. In recent months artists including Deerhoof, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, and Hotline TNT have all removed their music from streaming on Spotify as a form of protest. Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart was among the first artists to join the protest and spoke about his decision with The FADER, saying they won’t allow their music to “murder people for money.”
