Steve Stoute’s United Masters has been pushing the artist first in a campaign they’ve followed since the company’s creation. Since then, the brand has hosted SelectCon, which has been taking place over Twitch. As part of their programming for the event, Pharrell sat down and talked about different parts of the music industry, including labels giving artists record deal advances.
Steve Stoute asked Pharrell his thoughts on artists taking advances, with some of them not understanding the advances need to be paid back. Pharrell was very candid, saying: “You shouldn't walk into a company and say, 'I'm gonna make this record.' They give you an advance then for the tenure of that, the entire time you're album's out, you're working to pay back that advance.”
Stoute chimed in, saying, “It's illegal." Pharrell then said, “No bank gives a company a loan to start a company and walks away with the trademarks."
Pharrell went on to say, “No one should own you. No one should own your actions. No one should own your creations. But you." Since Pharrell is a massive artist worldwide, maybe his candid take will shift the narrative on the protection of artists' rights. Take a look above.
