Tiki Taane: Kiwi musician on the growing number of Kiwi artists boycotting Spotify

Many of New Zealand's biggest musicians are boycotting Spotify and ditching the platform amid accusations of exploitation.

Tiki Taane and The Bats are among the big names getting behind Boycott Spotify NZ and other Kiwi bands like Carb on Carb, Synthetic Children and Recitals have signed the statement calling for better treatment. 

Taane has cited greed, corruption and investment in European defence technology company Helsing as some of the key reasons why he's walking away.

"I love music, I love creating music, but I also have to take a stand against corruption, against greed, against war, against murder - the easiest thing for me to do to help support that is to take my music off the platform and cancel my subscription." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Right nineteen past five. Now que musicians are joining the
boycott of Spotify and quitting the platform, pulling all their
music off it. They say they're not getting paid nearly
enough for their art. Tikitane is one of the musicians
and with us, Hey, Tikei Curre, how are you well?
I'm well, thank you mate? Now is it kay? Is
it true? You've only got seventy six dollars since you

(00:24):
put Always on my Mind on the platform. That's all
you've ever got?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
No where hear that from?

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Oh my producer told me that is he telling me?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Fibbs seventy six though, like it's it done twenty seven
million streams, so that works out to be one hundred
and eight thousand dollars. Oh, that's not bad, it's not bad.
But then that's fourteen years. And then you've got to
take away twenty percent for the aggregator in the accounting,
so that takes down about eighty seven thousand. Then you've
got to pay tax on that thirty three percent, so
that's around fifty seven thousand. So around fifty seven thousand

(00:54):
dollars Always on my Mind has maybe in the fourteen years, it's.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Been honest it's not enough to live off, is it not?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Really? But that's not the point. The point is the
platform is rotten, it's corrupt, it's greedy, and they're investing
in war tech and it's just not a good place
to be.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
So why are you actually boycotting? Are you boycotting because
of all the stuff or is it because of the money?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Absolutely? Absolutely, Look, there's about ten reasons why and I
could talk to you for an hour about it if
you like. But to cut it down, I love music,
I love creating music, but I also have to take
a stand against corruption, against greed, against war, against murder.
So that the easiest thing for me to do to
help support that is to take my music off this

(01:39):
platform and cancel my subscription and look for platforms that
are transparent, are fear and align more of my vibe.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Are you not worried though, that there will be a
whole bunch of people who will never hear of you
and enjoy your music and then spend money coming to
see you because they because you Spotify.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
No, that's the thing. It's you think you will use Spotify,
but there's actually a whole culture out there who are
anti Spotify. My music's on about nine platforms, and it's
doing great on all these other platforms that you just
never hear about it. And these other platforms. They these
other platforms pay way better. Like Title plays four times
more than Spotify title. I'm on YouTube Music, Apple Music,

(02:20):
I'm on band Camp, on SoundCloud, I'm on Deezer. It's
just there's so many more. Plus I'm looking at other
platforms that are really cool to starting up, like Coder.
There's also q put. There's also there's another great one.
It's it's called Subvert Music. So there's amazing platforms out
there who actually care about music, care about artists, and

(02:42):
who want to have a fear transparence system. Brilliant.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Okay, so you can actually make enough to live off?

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yes, absolutely, just not that Spotify. No, you can. It
depends what everyone's different. This is a complex situation for everybody.
For me, I Spotify just makes up like a tiny
piece of the pie. You know. So I've got income
coming from playing live, mentoring my you know, the music
I make for films, the publishing, doing sound for shape Shifter.

(03:11):
So many different sections and income revenue coming from these
different places. Now, if you're an artist, that solely relies
on Spotify, then it's going to be really hard for
them to leave. So there's going to be a big
backing for them. So for me, I've spent years building
up to this point, building all these other platforms, up
my website, and so now's the time. I'm so ready
to take my music off and it's super liberating.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
It feels good, good stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Man.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Listen, thank you so much for talking us, Sorro. That's
tak Keywa musician.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
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Speaker 1 (03:43):
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