News — music ownership history

Why Record Labels Own Black Music (And Artists Don’t)

· By Anderson B. Cox

Why Record Labels Own Black Music (And Artists Don’t)

Music & Ownership SeriesKayatick Styles Most artists think they are signing a deal.They are actually signing away leverage.By the time contracts entered the music business, ownership was already spoken for.Ownership Was Decided Before Artists Entered the RoomWeek 1 established the foundation. Black musicians were professional workers long before the music industry existed. Music was labor. Income ended when the performance ended.Week 2 begins where power quietly shifted.When record labels formalized contracts in the early twentieth century, they were not inventing ownership models. They were legalizing control that already existed through infrastructure.The labels owned the machines.The labels owned the capital.The labels owned...

How Black Artists Built a Billion Dollar Music Industry

· By Anderson B. Cox

How Black Artists Built a Billion Dollar Music Industry

Before There Was an Industry They built a billion dollar music industry that rarely paid them. But the story does not begin with record labels, contracts, or studios. It begins before the industry existed at all. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Black musicians were already professional workers. Music was not branding or content. It was labor. It happened anywhere people gathered. Juke joints after long workdays. Churches on Sundays. Street corners in busy towns. Riverboats moving goods and people along the Mississippi. These musicians were not amateurs. They were trained by tradition. Passed down melodies. Learned rhythm...

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