Music Critic Saskia Hirst examines the debate over the morality of musicians and gives her take on the impacts of cancel culture
Artists are not charities. I’m aware this is a controversial topic, and I do not mean to understate its significance; merely to, in a sense, play devil’s advocate and offer an alternative caveat to the flaws in the established consensus’ peripheral vision. With that said and done, let’s make one thing clear entering this deep-dive: listening to musicians with a distorted morality may not, as it were, be ‘that deep.’ Hear me out. In The Independent’s words, ‘in the economy of the internet, where attention often equals money, such a boycott has consequences.’ Cancel culture is, then, an economy in itself. But it must be stressed streaming music, which inadvertently pays the musician, is not the same as making a lump-sum donation or subscription to a particular (lost) cause. What the musician does with the money is an indirect domino effect outside our control — and responsibility– as a listener. The art and the artist do not go hand-in-hand as much as we assume. Streaming music, no matter what [fill in the blank] views the musician possesses is not a pat on the back for their immoral actions. It is merely a pat on the back for their musical genius in their capacity as a creator. There is — or there should not be– shame in this.
they are certainly not bobble heads for a movement and their music is not a slogan for a particular cause you don’t believe in
Another reminder rings: artists are not figureheads for a particular movement. If the music isn’t a mantra or an overrun commercial for an immoral motivation, there is nothing to neither condone nor condemn. Musicians, like the rest of us unfortunately less-talented people, are, obviously, multifaceted creatures. They are certainly not bobble heads for a movement and their music is not a slogan for a particular cause you don’t believe in (unless they explicitly rebut otherwise, in which case, it is fair game to prove me wrong). Paying artists for their music is not a crime. Paying someone who has done bad things is not the same as paying them to do bad things. It’s a different kettle of fish. That must be remembered.
After all, what’s the point of cancelling musicians when we don’t cancel politicians? They are, effectively, a charity– albeit a (arguably) very poorly marketed, very overfunded one. Much like big corporate charities, you’re never really quite sure where your money is going. Johnson has compared musim women wearing burqas to bank robbers, Trump has notoriously been transphobic and Sabisky even suggested compulsory contraception to resolve the problem of unwanted pregnancies. Tone-deaf is an understatement. But if politicians can be elected — and most importantly, we sweep their statements under the rug for them to represent our views– why do we not hold them to the same account we hold musicians to? It’s hypocrisy at its finest. Musicians do not have near enough the brute force or power over our livelihoods in the calibr politicians do. Unless your name is Kanye West, and you attempted to run a failed presidential campaign of course.
We must not neglect that a legislators’ capacity for harm is more sinister: they have the power to enact their backdated moral leniencies into law; music, at least, we can take with a pinch of salt. Trump followed suit with this and turned his disgusting transgender views into an act forbidding trans people from serving in their own country’s army. If we take a nod to the unlikelihood of Trump’s impeachment, it reveals we seem to have no problem letting politicians run loose with virtually off the hook. Yet these are the figureheads who have a tangible, dictatorial authority over our livelihood. So surely we could just use cancel culture to more effective means than shunning musicians via their music. To put it colloquially, there are bigger fish to fry. After all, if we are really so hell-bent on artists’ morality, and cancel culture is an economy, shouldn’t we really put our money where our mouth is?
I digress. The only explanation that provides some logical sense would be the highly debated, perhaps controversial, relationship between artists and their art. A previous redbrick writer claims ‘I would argue it is not as simple as a separation between the the art and the artist because there is no actual separation and, as such, when supporting one, we do the other as well.’
The music and the musician may belong to the same family tree, but heirlooms, like branches, can be easily sawn off.
I would like to dispute this. Yes, I will not disagree that music wouldn’t exist without the musician. That much is obvious. But the music is not the musician — and certainly not their morality. This is an important distinguishment. After all, this is what our issue with such musicians boils down to. Supporting music may support the artist— but it most certainly does not support the artists problematic views. That must be stressed. Art is an independent by-product of the artist. Oscar Wilde would agree. It is a case for—and of—‘art for art’s sake.’ Once art is produced, it is out of the musicians hands and runs loose, much like Frankenstein’s creature. If that tells us one thing, it is that the creator and the created are most definitely not synonymous. The music and the musician may belong to the same family tree, but heirlooms, like branches, can be easily sawn off.
Furthermore, there is a distinctive separation between the music and musician: the music is mutated after release — interpretations hit the ground running from the artist’s original conception and get the best of us in our perilous connection to the music. Perhaps it is this exact facade of individual connection to the artist after the feeing they’ve ‘spoken to my soul,’ you could put it, that makes the musicians morality seem like our personal responsibility to resolve.
Perhaps this branch of connection should be sawn off too — maybe that will resolve the obligation to boycott music. Of course, this connection is severed more easily when the artist dies and thus any mutual feeling for fear of funding moral incompetence is out of the question: it is, of course, by that point impossible. But my argument still stands: if the musicians’ music is not the problem — so why would we not listen to it? They are not famous for being a ‘good person’ (or whatever that means nowadays), so is it necessary to shun their music, out of all things, instead of their character? Listening merely equates to ‘funding’ the creative outputs of their character — not their moral blunders. In which case, it’s a personal choice of consenting to what you put in your ears: I, to name one poignant example, avoid rap music for wish of wanting to escape derogatory slogans at the likes of Kendrick Lamar’s ‘bitch, be humble.’ But sometimes I let my own frivolous ethos back-handedly slip and listen. It can’t be helped. A social guillotine is not a necessary tool to bring to a personal sword dual. The courts do this on our behalf. We should, on the matter, then, rely on social, legal and political systems of justice. If we deem these systems inadequate in this area, it propels advancements in other spheres of social blunders by consequence. It shoots two birds with one stone, as it were. This deflection of blame from the listener, therefore, is effective in amending the wider, complex inter web that the rhetoric of musicians and their morality falls into.
By no means do I seek to belittle the preposterous comments musicians may come out with– they certainly must be held to account– but I merely seek to advocate that boycotting music is, too (if not more) shooting yourself, the artist, and moral accountability in the foot. If these political views do not seep through the music, then what makes this music so immoral? It is — quite literally– a shame that listening to music from immoral artists comes with a caveat of guilt. In this ‘pseudo-digital lynch mob,’ who said music was a manifestation of musicians’ morality?
Cancel culture, extrapolating more generally, is a prison sentence that blindsides the value of rehabilitation
Cancel culture, extrapolating more generally, is a prison sentence that blindsides the value of rehabilitation. Or the legal prison itself if the musician is indeed prosecuted. It prevents reform, which, need I remind cancel culture, that it is the crucial purpose of calling people out to begin with. Unless the artist’a morality is deemed too far stretched for humanitarian safety. Thus, there appears, quite blankly, to be more effective ways of wielding cancel culture. But if we aren’t going to stop politicians, whose morality is equally questionable from election into power, where their blundered beliefs seep into their not-so-charitable, debatably lost cause, why would we boycott music for an independent facet of the musicians character that exists detached from the art itself?
Yes, no doubt musicians should– and must– be held to account like any other, but as our capacity as a listener, it’s quite frankly not our job. By this, I mean boycotting is as much of a blunder in its futility. If Spotify or Apple, or any other streaming platform for that matter, keeps the artist on there, the quarrel we have to pick is not with ourselves. It is vital, instead, to seek any form of justice regarding streaming artist’s with distorted morality’s music with the streaming services themselves. If it’s in your capacity as a person, independent from boycotting the songs themselves, then by all means, seek to educate artists like Ariel Pink.
However, the rhetoric of the musician and their morality is more complex than what we give credit.
Of course, the most tangible, sufficient justification for boycotting music is on personal grounds or, collectively speaking, if the music itself incites hatred. However, the rhetoric of the musician and their morality is more complex than what we give credit. Encapsulating this, is the reverse relationship is just as rife— Yo Gotti’s ‘Rake it Up’ conforms to rape culture in the lyric ‘if I tip a bitch, we fucking/ it ain’t no discussion.’ The alarm of course arises from not only the lack of, but the complete disregard, for consent. Yet the musician himself has not been accused of sexual assault. The question rings alarmingly clear: what do we do? We could take this with a pinch of salt, as it may be a fictional story within the songwriting— but at what cost? Of course, the musician’s music may be a persona and caricature that does not reflect their own morality. We have the freedom to listen to this, but here my argument nonetheless stands: here, if not the musician’s morality, then the lyrics themselves take a backhand to society’s established sense of justice. To balance the scales, then, this serves a convincing justification to boycott music on a personal level— or even advocate on a streaming-level boycott. Distorted morality has infiltrated music and arguably incites hatred and violence towards women. Or a ‘bitch.’ They’re synonymous in the lyrics.
And bear in mind, the law has its place for a reason. It’s not the internet police’s obligation to take criminal matters into their hands before legislation does. If anything, it subverts the Rule of Law and civilisation itself.
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