Boris Johnson is described as “notoriously stupid and inept” by a feature on music streaming app Spotify which explains song lyrics to listeners.
The loophole in a “behind the lyrics” explanation was discovered on Stormzy’s number one hit Vossi Bop, which contains the lyric “Fuck the government and fuck Boris”.
Less than a minute in, listeners are shown a fact box which reads: “Boris Johnson is the notoriously stupid and inept former British Foreign Minister and Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016.”
The feature is enabled by song lyrics website Genius, which allows any internet user or verified artist to sign up for an account and annotate lyrics to a wide range of songs across genres, in exchange for ‘points’.
Spotify and Genius partnered up in 2016 to offer the service, named “Fact Track” allowing brief nuggets of information about a lyric to pop up on Spotify users’ phones while they listen.
It is not clear how the “fact” relating to Johnson, the frontrunner in the Tory leadership race, made it onto the app.
But Genius says on its website that the Fact Tracks, which are timed along to the music, are derived from information posted to genius.com.
Genius adds that annotations on its site are reviewed by an editor – usually a “dedicated scholar” within the community who consistently offers high-quality annotations.
Spotify has been contacted for comment.