Lauryn Hill takes to Instagram to share a message about the exploitative relationship between artists and labels to push support for the FAIR act.
Lauryn Hill has always been one of the greatest social advocates of any time that she finds herself in. Today, April 14th, 2022, Hill took to Instagram to break down the power dynamic of artist and record label, and explains why she thinks the FAIR act is necessary to stuff exploitative behavior.
“We would love to believe that businesses at the highest level are always run by fair practices and moral prerogatives, but this is more often than not, not the case. For this reason laws MUST exist that protect people from harsh and insensitive practices like artist suppression, and willful sabotage and neglect.
Record companies are still peopled and run by…well, people with personal policies, biases and issues we may know nothing about. Artists can easily fall prey to the internal politics of business, someone inside simply not liking them, or bullying and intimidation and the attacks that come when someone resists that coercion.”
“Music is a most powerful medium. Often people want to influence the influencers and will stop at nothing less than treachery to accomplish their goal. Greed often perverts the creative intentions of young dreamers who don’t realize they’re up against a system with a history of using and crushing people who don’t comply with their agenda.
Record companies having agendas isn’t the problem, distorting, repressing and controlling artists who don’t align with these agendas and don’t want to align with these agendas is the problem.
We have a history of examples, of albums, of bands, and of people whose influence on popular culture has literally changed the world. This art has been the voice of the people, met the needs of society, helped society through harsh periods and transitions and birthed new ways of thinking and being into the world. When these voices go silenced and repressed, the world is dramatically affected.”
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“No institution should be allowed the opportunity to control the market by controlling the output of a creative being for some ridiculous, indefinite period of time. This is not only unjust, it’s dangerous, and at its core a violation of the principles of free expression.
Artists’ expressions ARE their voices, and an extension of their free speech and should not be contained, caugh up or controlled beyond a reasonable amount of time by an institution with the money and power to obstruct and deny someone’s output indefinitely.
There is no justice in that, and the consequences of the missing and repressed art and artists of this era is evidenced by the great instability of this current time in world history.”
“In an ideal scenario an artist and record company are a healthy partnership of creative and business collaboration, where artists feel safe and supported to be at their best, to expand, to explore and to grow. Proper legislation is necessary to help these important institutions live up to that ideal, and to protect the artists who remain vulnerable to all kinds of exploitation without it.
#Peonage, #Involuntary Servitude, #Circular No. 3591
@asmtbh easmvalladares @asmrichardbloom @steven_choi68 easmmikefong @adrin.nazarian #laurafriedman Please support recording artists in California and pass The FAIR Act. Thank you.”
