In a recent Joe Rogan interview, Kanye West vented his frustration with record labels, music industry contracts and master ownership, vowing to “free all artists by any means necessary”.
These comments bely an uneasy relationship between Artists and Record Labels. Long before an artist is adored and adorned on bedroom walls, Record Labels will flatter promising talent with a fancy upfront fee and support, claiming they will make them rich, famous and powerful by putting time, money and expert resources behind them. Most artists will agree to whatever the Record Label offers, especially as these offers come at such an early time in the artists career.
Bear in mind, this is a legitimate business model. The Record Label is making an early and risky bet on an artist. However, the model is now coming under fire due to artists speaking out about the injustice on the tail end of the model. An example of this is Kanye West’s recent Twitter rant that went global.
The issue is that once an artist becomes popular, the Record Label sits in the background and takes the lion’s share of the royalties based on the original contract.
From the Record Label point of view, this is totally fair. They took a risk and invested in the artist, and they have been proven right. No one gives this much hate to the guy that bought Bitcoin when it was only worth a dollar, so you can see why it might irk Record Label’s that they have been made to look like the bad guy after making their artist powerful and famous. If it wasn’t for the Record Label, the artist wouldn’t be where they are today.
From the artist point of view, Record Labels are making millions from your work, and you are making diddly squat relative to them. But who is to blame? The artist did sign the contract in the beginning of all of this, right?
This ultimately causes friction, bad vibes and eventually, lawsuits. Think Kesha Vs Sony; Jonny Cash Vs Columbia Records; Michael Jackson Vs Sony, Prince Vs Warner Bros; Dr Dre Vs Death Row Records; Courtney Love Vs Universal; N Sync Vs Jive; Backstreet Boys Vs Jive. These disputes largely came down to disagreements of music ownership and who has a say on what each party can do with the music. YOUR music. THEIR music.
So who is the real winner here, the artist or the Record Label? No one. The issue is clear. The business model is broken. Kanye said that Record Labels should break down the incentive issues between themselves and their artists. This is what we have tried to do at ANONA.
ANONA (Art Non-Artist) is a movement that offers an alternative path to the outdated Artist-Record Label relationship.
ANONA is organized as an online music collaborative, whereby Artists (songwriters, producers, recording musicians) and Non-Artists (business people, influencers, videographers, marketers, fans etc) collaborate together on a song-by-song basis, under the ANONA brand. ANONA does not represent, idolize or popularize a singular artist or person, but rather, showcases the talents of everyone involved in the collaborative. It pursues a non-onerous approach to music creation, collaboration and distribution and ensures that all collaborators share in both the recognition and economic spoils. A recent example of ANONA’s work can be seen below.
ANONA does not seek to take a portion of an entire artists future work. It only takes a portion of the specific song which it has helped facilitated and wishes to use as a showcase of skills. It does not seek to own an artist’s brand… only its own, and the ANONA brand stands for one thing — all artists, working together.
While the music world struggles for a harmonious solution to the perennial Artist-Record Label problems, ANONA could be the solution artists have been looking for because it enables artists to meet other talented artists, showcase their skills, get distribution and earn fair recognition and recompense without selling their entire futures to a money-hungry corporation.
COLLABORATIVE MUSIC IS CREATED THROUGH LOTS OF TALENTED ARTISTS COMING TOGETHER TO MAKE COOL SHIT.
IF YOU LIKE THAT IDEA AND WANT TO SEE WHAT THEY COME UP WITH, WE’LL SEND IT YOU WHEN IT’S RELEASED… CLICK TO ADD YOUR EMAIL BELOW 👇👇🏻👇🏽👇🏿
