Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner was removed from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Board of Directors after making derogatory remarks about Black and female artists.
TMZ reports that a vote was taken to remove Wenner from the Hall of Fame’s board. Bruce Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, was reportedly the lone dissenting vote.
Wenner is a co-founder of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and served as its chairman until 2020.
Earlier this week, Wenner came under fire following comments he made to the New York Times in an interview promoting his new book The Masters. Asked why only white male musicians were featured in the book, Wenner justified the lack of diversity by arguing that Black and female artists “just didn’t articulate at the level” of their white male peers.
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“Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level,” Wenner was quoted as saying. “Joni [Mitchell] was not a philosopher of rock ’n’ roll. She didn’t, in my mind, meet that test. Not by her work, not by other interviews she did. The people I interviewed were the kind of philosophers of rock… I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level.”
Update: Wanner has issued an apology: “In my interview with The New York Times, I made comments that diminished the contributions, genius, and impact of Black and women artists and I apologize wholeheartedly for those remarks. The Masters is a collection of interviews I’ve done over the years that seemed to me to best represent an idea of rock ‘n’ roll’s impact on my world; they were not meant to represent the whole of music and it’s diverse and important originators but to reflect the high points of my career and interviews I felt illustrated the breadth and experience in that career. They don’t reflect my appreciation and admiration for myriad totemic, world-changing artists whose music and ideas I revere and will celebrate and promote as long as I live. I totally understand the inflammatory nature of badly chosen words and deeply apologize and accept the consequences.”
Wenner left Rolling Stone in 2019 following its sale to Penske Media Company.
