I’m sure we all have heard about Kanye West’s rants, these are new, happened a few days ago, it’s interesting how everything unfolded. There are mixed reactions on what he had to say, mostly about the entertainment industry. People have mixed reactions about his dealings with rap mogul Jay z.
The funny thing about all this is that most people see the glamour and the glitter and they equate everything to it.
No matter how many times this is said, people will still get the wrong misconception. Being Rich, being wealthy, and being famous are 3 different things.
Sometimes these 3 intersect, sometimes they don’t. Most people think that once you get fame everything else is added to it which could be further from the truth. They think once you are famous, you get the women and the money.
With this issue, people will be dismissive and say, “Oh, Kanye is crazy, he doesn’t know what he is talking about, but he posted a contract for us to read, I must say it is a 100 page contract, so no one is really going to spend time reading it. The few who read it know it was almost an unfair deal. The more important question should be, is Kanye telling the truth? YES!!. It is said that Jay Z had to “sell out” his own brother in order to get his own masters back. Jay could have got his masters back by other means, like re-recording his music so he can own them, (Prince said he was going to do that, on an interview with Larry King, I don’t know if he actually did it, Taylor Swift also said she was going to do the same thing). As far as the contract, I will leave that part to you the reader. Year after year the story seems to be the same, a lot of people don’t know that Notorious B.I.G ( Biggie Smalls), and Tupac Shakur, died broke, they didn’t make enough money, from their own music.
The question we should all be asking is, “is it worth it “? Is the music industry really as shady as they make it out to be or are some of the artists just overspend money that is recoupable? Do these artists really possess the talent and creativity to produce and write their own songs, or we just see them as something they are not? Take a case like R Kelly, despite what you think of him, just based on creativity alone, he shouldn’t be broke! Sadly he is because he trusted the wrong people after all. Mc Hammer shouldn’t be broke, he is one of the few rappers that actually sold 10 million copies, and above(diamond amongst people like Tupac, Notorious BIG, and Eminem, just to name a few. For those who don’t understand how important diamond status is, this means the album or single sold 10 million copies and above. We have people like the Beatles and Elvis in that category, and a few African songs like ” sweet mother” which sold more copies than the Beatles best seller. This is how rare and important that is.
At the end of the day, we can’t blame the industry too much for what they do, after all, they are in this to make money, they could care less about fame. Personally I think it is up to the artist to learn as much as they can, so they can start making their own money. If that doesn’t happen we will hear the same story again and again.
There have been a few people that have actually helped musicians and the music business as a whole.
Michael Jackson, Master P, Wendy Day, and believe it or not Donald Trump. yes, our 45th did more to help musicians even more than Jay Z ever has, by signing The MUSIC Modernization ACT. He used executive privileges to sign this into law. This targets the streaming services, of course, they didn’t like that.
That ACT forces, streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify to pay royalties to the artists/songwriters/engineers, back then Streaming services including Jay-Z’s Tidal were not paying artists/songwriters/engineers, when their material is played on streaming services. Spotify tried to retaliate by suing songwriters, I’m yet to be updated on that particular lawsuit.
One of the ugly truths also is that most people don’t know that they make more money in their 9-5 than their favorite artists. You can read Kanye’s contracts by clicking the link below
