Prince Warns Young Artists: Record Contracts Are ‘Slavery’

[hausga 615]

Two days after Prince announced that he would release his new album HitNRun exclusively to Tidal, the singer revealed the reason he is sidestepping a record label and offering the LP directly through Jay Z’s streaming service. “Record contracts are just like — I’m gonna say the word – slavery,” Prince said. “I would tell any young artist… don’t sign.”

Speaking to a small group of reporters from the National Association of Black Journalists Saturday at his Paisley Park Studios in Minneapolis, Prince expressed concerns over the future of the music business, NPR reports. He also voiced his disapproval about how record labels turn artists into “indentured servitude,” since the artists have little control or insight over how labels take their music and profit off it online, a claim David Byrne similarly laid against the major labels.

“Once we have our own resources, we can provide what we need for ourselves,” Prince said of why he chose to team with Tidal. “Jay Z spent $100 million of his own money to build his own service. We have to show support for artists who are trying to own things for themselves.”

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Prince also debuted a pair of tracks from his September 7th-bound HitNRun, reportedly titled “Love Control” and “Shut This Down.” Those tracks join the previously released first single “Hardrocklover.” Prince also told the Paisley Park crowd that HitNRun would be released physically at some point.

This isn’t the first time Prince has compared the music industry to slavery. In 1993, when Prince and Warner Bros. were warring over his record contract, the rocker frequently appeared in public and onstage with “slave” scrawled on his cheek. Prince would soon change his name to “the Artist Formerly Known As” and “the Love Symbol” in an effort to “emancipate” himself “from the chains that bind me to Warner Bros.” Prince and the label later reconciled for 2014’s Art Official Age.

As fractious Prince’s relationship with record labels have been, his dealings with the Internet have been even more contentious. In 2007, Prince called upon the Web Sheriff to strip all images, videos and torrents involving the rocker off the web. That same year, Prince feuded with his own fansites over the use of his image, which resulted in a diss track called “PFUnk.” More recently, Prince pulled all his music off streaming services before aligning with Tidal and deleted his Twitter and Facebook accounts.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/prince-warns-young-artists-record-contracts-are-slavery-32645/

he tried to warn us

 

[Economy 50,393]

I'd want Gaga to do her own label but then she'd do stupid things career wise

 

I know ABBA had their own label

[Reginald 13,841]

Prince got blacklisted for a long time for speaking out against the music industry, MJ also. 

[ANTI WP 19,825]

27 minutes ago, Economy said:

I'd want Gaga to do her own label but then she's do stupid things career wise

 

I know ABBA had their own label

Low-key you are correct 

I can see gagz doing many unwanted things 

[KatieJudasGaga4 67,907]

5 minutes ago, Economy said:

I'd want Gaga to do her own label but then she's do stupid things career wise

 

1 minute ago, ANTI WP said:

Low-key you are correct 

I can see gagz doing many unwanted things 

Like what? 

[Economy 50,393]

3 minutes ago, ANTI WP said:

Low-key you are correct 

I can see gagz doing many unwanted things 

 

2 minutes ago, KatieJudasGaga4 said:

 

Like what? 

Like scrapping things endlessly without anyone putting limits on her push backs... Picking terrible singles etc etc etc

 

She'd burn her career to the ground without greedy executives keeping her in check and making sure she'd actually marketable 

[ANTI WP 19,825]

37 minutes ago, KatieJudasGaga4 said:

 

Like what? 

 1) Like scraping , redoing , mastering  the same song numerous times and releasing when the hype of song ( sound ) is outdated 

2) she will take her creative  to another level ( not in a good way ) TEOG video teas and many

3) we know that she cleary cannot control all the things happening around her 

4) doing unwanted collaboration and not releasing it ..." she should know what she want to do for the next move " even the whole world goes against here 

Things like these will mess up her career

[Boyboi12 2,125]

So true! But no one wanted to listen to prince  

[geusst1235 5,398]

MJ also tried to bring these problems to light,especially during the early 2000s when he was having issues with Sony.

[geusst1235 5,398]

4 minutes ago, hausga said:

oh no i didn't know Micheal Jackson had also suffered the same fate of being exploited by the moneymakers in the industry . i honestly now  feel really bad to make a thread  on Paul McCartney songs being used for advertisement. but i meant it as no shade or hate to micheal but only as a message of the cruel reality of the entertainment industry

Yeah Sony basically screwed MJ over by not promoting Invincible at all and forcing a different first single to be chosen,among other stuff they did. Don't feel bad about it,a lot of people still don't know that it happened back in the early 2000s 

[Ziggy 12,031]

Yup. He had to literally drop his name in order to get around with WB contract and still make music.

1) Baller move; things like this are why he’s one of my eternal faves.

2) We mock it now, but that “eccentric” decision was truthfully not that eccentric and was just so he could freely make music. He’d spoken about it many times before his death.

 

My two cents: whether you like an artist or not, if the likes of MJ, Prince, Jay, Taylor, and Gaga are talking about this and industry abuse then it’s very real. I trust Prince to speak truth to power because that guy took absolutely no nonsense from anyone. 

[Ziggy 12,031]

11 minutes ago, hausga said:

this is like the same what happened to Gaga during the ARTPOP era when she was forced to use Applause as the lead singles instead of Aura or when the entire inter scope label decided not to pay her for the funding of the G.U.Y video

The latter point was not a refusal to pay but more that they didn’t want to invest in another single, especially when the video was so expensive. I’d say a more probable reference would be Gaga having to fight so hard for Alejandro as single, TFM cover fight (as well as the aura debacle), Venus and DWUW, and the BTW single MESS. Heck, even A-YO vs MR (though to a lesser degree since it’s clear she liked the song.)

 

tbh I think the r Kelly thing was the label. What a coincidence that Kelly had a comeback album with interscope right around the time Gaga was dropping ARTPOP and she just so happened to feature him. Wow, what coincidentally beneficial, synergistic promotion /s

[Boyboi12 2,125]

2 hours ago, hausga said:

 a prince fan in GGD ? we unite 

i always hated how many choose to ignore prince's comments and protest against this injustice . i know many people mocked and made fun of him for using the slave painting on his cheek as his failed attempt to gain publicity

i hope those people rot in hell

 

 

I love prince so much!!!!!! 

[gypsy101 5,453]

how is he saying any of this, he’s dead

[gypsy101 5,453]

14 minutes ago, hausga said:

umm sweetie the thread has throwback writing in it . this is what he prior to his death in 2015 and i,m just writing this to show how he was right all along

also the ignorance jumped out

no the ignorance didn’t jump out, the bad formatting jumped out