Joey Badass Believes He’s Being Censored After Apple Music Fails To Play Some Of His Songs

It’s been a few years since Brooklyn rapper Joey Badass released his last album, All-Amerikkkan Badass, but the messages from it resonate as strongly as ever in light of current events. The album finds Joey in full revolutionary mode, speaking to the ills of American society, including racism, inequality, and police brutality, making it one of the timeless albums that bears repeating as the cycle of state violence continues to be publicized on social media. That’s exactly the same quality that Joey believes has DSPs (digital streaming platforms) “censoring” his music.

When some fans reached out to Joey about problems streaming songs from All-Amerikkkan Badass yesterday, the rapper posted screenshots to his story of Apple Music users receiving error messages and complaining of censorship.

Joey himself reacted on Twitter, posting his own screenshot and lamenting, “WOKE UP TO MFS CENSORING MY MUSIC.”

Among the screenshots from Joey’s fans, the common thread appears to be a message that “This song is unavailable in your region.” While none of the screenshots reveal which region those fans are attempting to play their music from, there are plenty of reasons for the error, from licensing rights changes to a simple glitch in the software. On Joey’s own screenshot, the downloaded tracks are also not playing, suggesting that the problem was from Apple’s side, though.

The album in question played just fine as of press date from both my laptop and my phone, so it was likely just a temporary glitch. Besides, other inflammatory albums, like Ice Cube’s Amerikkka’s Most Wanted and Dead Prez’s Let’s Get Free seemed to play just fine in that same time frame so it seems unlikely that there was any concerted effort to silence hip-hop’s political voice. In any event, Joey’s been hinting that he has some new music on the way, so it may be just the right time for an update on his sociopolitical commentary.

Listen to Joey’s “Land Of The Free” above