What does your Spotify account say about you? A new website claims it can answer that question for some of the most powerful people in the world.
Panama Playlists was created by an anonymous researcher who claims to have tracked and verified the Spotify accounts of politicians, celebrities and journalists.
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“With a little investigating,” the creator wrote on the site, “I could say with near-certainty: yep, this is that person.”
The name of the project is a playful nod to the Panama Papers, a collection of 11.5 million documents that were leaked in 2016, exposing high-profile people and how they used offshore tax havens to hide money and avoid taxes.
“The Panama Papers revealed hidden bank accounts,” the Panama Playlist website, which stresses no affiliation with Spotify, says. “This reveals hidden tastes.”
Pop hits and political profiles
If the findings are accurate, Vice President JD Vance’s playlists feature boy band anthems like the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way,” Justin Bieber’s “Baby” and One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s “My Shazam Tracks” once featured tracks like Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On” and “Until the Sun Needs to Rise” by RÜFÜS DU SOL. However, as of Monday, that profile appears to have been deleted or made private.
Similarly, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ “Galentines” playlist also came from a profile no longer available. That playlist had previously included songs like “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani and “Best I Ever Had” by Drake.
Non-political public figures include people like Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri and NBC’s Al Roker. While Roker doesn’t have a profile linked on the Panama Playlists page, it lists his top two songs of the past year as “Philadelphia Freedom” and “Are You Ready for Love,” both by Elton John.
On July 31, Roker posted a video on Instagram of him talking over “Philadelphia Freedom.” His caption read, “It isn’t often that I get to play my favorite song, Philadelphia Freedom by @eltonjohn whilst walking in #thecityofbrotherlylove Passing the iconic steps of the @philamuseum.”
Matching names and personal clues
The anonymous creator told the New York Post they monitored accounts for months, using only publicly available information to try to verify ownership. The creator told the Post that some accounts make it easy to identify the owner. For example, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s alleged profile uses her name as its display name.
While anyone could use that name, the researcher points to a playlist called “John” as supporting evidence. Bondi’s longtime partner is John Wakefield, and she shares an older playlist with a Spotify account under that same name.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s “Baby Shower” playlist was created one month before her son was born.
Spotify responds
Spotify told The Independent that if the researcher behind Panama Playlists is using a Spotify account to gather information from public playlists, it would violate the platform’s terms of use.
The creator has not responded to a request for comment from Straight Arrow News. For now, the internet appears to be treating the site as a pop culture guessing game — peeking into the musical tastes of public figures, one playlist at a time.
