The baristas were playing music from Spotify over the speakers on Friday, as they often do, when a Duke University official walked in. Larry Moneta, the vice president for student affairs, waited for his usual order from the campus coffee shop — a hot tea and vegan muffin, according to Indy Week. But the vulgar rap song he heard on the speakers bothered him.
“Get paid … get paid,” Young Dolph raps in the song, using the n-word. “Whatever you do, just make sure you get paid.”
The baristas did get paid — severance checks.
The two baristas on duty, Britni Brown and Kevin Simmons, told Indy Week, an alternative weekly in Durham, N.C., that their contracts were terminated after Moneta complained to the director of dining services about the profane song.
Moneta said in a statement to the News & Observer and the Duke Chronicle on Tuesday that he was “shocked” to hear lyrics that he said were “quite inappropriate for a working environment that serves children among others.” He said he was particularly troubled by the line in the song that goes “I …. her up real good,” using the f-word.
He said it was the coffee chain’s choice, not his, to fire the employees.
“The employees who chose to play the song in a business establishment on the Duke campus made a poor decision which was conveyed to” the coffee shop management, Moneta wrote in the statement. “How they responded to the employees’ behavior was solely at their discretion.”
That day, Brown was working the register at the Joe Van Gogh coffee shop and was in charge of running the playlist, which was curated by Spotify. Brown told Indy Week that Moneta approached her and told her the song was inappropriate.
She immediately turned off the song, apologized for offending him, and offered to give him his muffin free of charge, she told Indy Week….
