‘Tis the season for Spotify Wrapped: a year-in-review of users’ top artists, songs and minutes streamed. Wrapped started in 2015 originally called “Year in Music,” but the next year it was retitled “Wrapped.” Then, in 2019, the story-like format came to light and has mostly been the same, with more fun added twists along the way.
This year, Spotify included “Your Audio Aura” that includes a user’s top music moods. For example, my moods are energy and bold—which I think matches up with my top genre of Dance Pop.
The music app also included a two truths and a lie mini-game where users can guess the lie based on what music they’ve listened to. Personally, I enjoyed this fun addition. I’ve also looked at my Wrapped more than once and the prompts changed the second time I looked!
Something else that came out this year was the true creator of Spotify Wrapped stories: an intern named Jewel Ham. Ham is a Black creator who interned for Spotify in 2019 that originally had the concept for the story-type delivery, according to a Refinery 29 article.
This type of behavior isn’t unusual for large corporations. It’s common that anything large corporations’ interns do is the company’s property and they seldom receive any credit. In this case, it’s even more unfortunate that Spotify did not give credit to a Black woman creator. When “progressive” companies silence marginalized voices, it shows more about their motives than any claims the company makes would. Essentially, actions speak louder than words.
While I love looking at my Spotify Wrapped (and secretly judging everyone else’s music taste on social media), I love the Wrapped “stories” even more now that I know it was designed by a Black female creator.
Ham no longer works in corporations and is now an independent artist. Readers can support her work here.