(Oct. 2, 2022 ● Oslin Pierrette)
Kanye has this public perception of being this neurotic person. That he is very erratic and crazy, and I simply believe that it’s false for the most part. People like to judge his actions, but you never see the “why”. You never see what happens in those rooms, the meetings he’s in, that are pushing him there. Someone with a proven track record for producing greatness, consistently over a long period of time. But even with that, he seems to receive a lot of push back to create more. I just think the world he’s involved in, at the level he is, would drive anybody crazy. Let’s talk about his contribution to culture musically. He made College Dropout, Late registration, Graduation, 808’s, Dark Twisted Fantasy, Yeezus, Life of Pablo, etc. Which is easily the greatest Hip-Hop album run of all time. Being a top level performer for two decades.
Then he had Nike Yeezy’s. The most culturally impactful sneaker of that era. You also had Jordan 11 releases, but those are old silhouettes. So the Nike Yeezy’s, especially the Red October are the most innovative and impactful sneakers of that era. So you would expect with that amount of success he would get the freeway to create more products. Unfortunately that wasn’t true. He was held back from implementing all the ideas he had to express on footwear. But Nike seems like they want to restrict him to maybe 1 sneaker a year or longer than that. Also restrict him from having royalties. That’s where you see a lot of those “neurotically erratic” reactions come from.
But it seemed like a reasonable reaction. When everyone thinks his actions are irrational and erratic. What he’s dealing with is corporate people who are most likely telling someone who is well-versed on what the culture wants or needs, especially with a proven track record, and telling Kanye that he cannot create like he wants to, for whatever absurd reason. If someone just created a hit, why are they not allowed and allotted the resources to create another one. Now you can’t express your ideas and have to let it simmer in you and not release it. That would seem very frustrating, especially when it isn’t clear at all why you’re not being allowed to. So that poses the question why can’t you create it on your own.
But it’s nowhere near as simple as it’s said. Why can’t you make it on your own? These infrastructures just don’t seem so simple where you can walk in and do what you want. Where money isn’t enough. There’s information and resources that aren’t available for some people. These industries and infrastructures seem monopolized, to where you have to deal with the people that control these things. You want to create music, there is a distribution industry that you have to tap into that is controlled by a few entities. You want to create clothing on a mass scale, there’s factories that you need connections to, to be able to produce what you want. To unlock those resources and access, it seems you need the relationships to open that door for you. And if you don’t have a good relationship with these people, those doors seem to close.
Kanye at the time didn’t have the funds or access to those manufacturers to actualize his visions. That’s where you see the “rants” on him speaking on the marginalization that he is experiencing. Him bringing up his résumé, and why it’s ridiculous why people wouldn’t give him the resources to create more. This is where you see him denouncing the corporations. Calling out board members, executives, CEO’s. Names and people you typically never heard about. This where you see him probably upsetting The Boys Club(which will be explained later). That’s when you see a lot of the media come at him with bad press. That’s making him look narcissistic, neurotic, erratic, irrational, crazy, too loud, etc. Into this villain character. Basically his Yeezus era, the start of his frustration era publicly.
So now that leads him to another corporation. Leaving Nike, the hottest sneaker brand, especially since they’re housing Jordan. Now he’s doing a deal with the less cool Adidas. Where they are gonna allow him to create more, and have royalties, a better situation. Introduction of CalmYe, good vibes Ye(my speculation of course). It was weird to me how calm he was. After the frustration run he was on, he just seem too sedatively calm.
But still he went on to create classic and amazing Yeezy silhouettes. First off the Yeezy 750’s, an amazingly crafted sneaker. Then the classic 350’s, a staple in the culture. Then the very euphoric and serotonin packed album The Life of Pablo drops. Everything seems to be going Good in 2016. (End of 2016 also) Then 2017 happens…
It was a very weird era for Ye. Basically the beginning of the destruction of his likeness to the public. An era of some off-putting comments and actions. He most likely isn’t the most sound person at this time. His actions basically turned off the public towards him. For the public, he became a really unlikeable character. Kanye is definitely not infallible, he definitely had very unagreeable moments. But it’s so different from the person the public used to know. He felt completely different and off in his mannerisms. What was the change? Then you get the answer.
Ye was doped up. It made everything make sense. The CalmYe and his erratic moments. What do you think would happen if you had a reality show about a doped up addict, and opioid withdrawal, what’s the type of content you expect, especially Ye edition. Like he said, his environment and world had him afraid to be him. Who gave him the medication, who in his environment is looking out for him. That’s why losing someone like his mother, his only trusted infrastructure is instrumental. You always hear the stories of entertainers in the industry, being coerced into a life of drugs.
Also there seems to be a high level of paranoia when you’re in these battles with corporations and seeing what happened to other entertainers in the industry who reject the agenda, and it just gets written off as a conspiracy. So with all these actions, he’s basically been written off as a crazy person. Another drugged up entertainer, who is so far gone.
Then he starts transparently explaining his music contract situations. Kanye West is basically a slave to the music. The industry seems like a dog eat dog world, where peers don’t speak up and warn others of the evils of the industry. Which leads many into getting “raped” by these labels and corporations, with contracts that are absolutely absurd, but no one would know, because who would understand contract language. The lawyer that is available typically is a lawyer that is covertly in cahoots with the corporation. Buttering, charming, and setting you up for a terrible mistake in your life, that many don’t recover from. And getting “raped” and screwed in contracts is a typical industry standard, which is an absurd normality.
So the question always comes up, why do you need the label? Why don’t you just use your resources to do it on your own. It’s the same reason why Kanye is held back in creating an empire in his other ventures, but completely allowed to make a music empire. His music isn’t his empire to own. It’s not ok to be just a Hip-Hop artist, but a signed Hip-Hop artist.
Hip-Hop acts that have gone the indie route usually are blocked from the resources to flourish. Losing radio play/playlist listing. Blocked the marketing that would be needed. Names aren’t easily findable on DSP’s. Basically blocked from being visible, decapitating them. Also some artists, you’ll start to see negative news stories about them “coincidentally” leak. Basically a fear tactic to keep musical acts in bed with the monster.
Honestly though, this really doesn’t matter to Kanye. He’s big enough to bypass all the fear tactics to be indie. The problem is, he’s signed into a lifelong music deal. With royalty/master percentages that are probably terrible, the standard. Him trying to get out the deal is being met with the strongest forces for him not to. They never want to stop owning certain acts. But after exposing his very egregious contract, and his very public dispute, later on he is self proclaimed freed from Def Jam. If he is, it took a billionaire and all his resources to do so.
Through all this turmoil, drug battles, destruction of public appeal, and corporation and industry disputes, he still managed to create great products, great music. With things like Ye then later on Donda. Then off 2020/21 alone creating the Yeezy Foam Runners, Yeezy 700 v3, Yeezy NSLTD BT, Yeezy Knit runner, and Yeezy slides (technically Dec. 2019) all new silhouettes. This is an unprecedented amount of sneaker innovation. This guy is the best person in footwear right now. That’s an insane run, to create that many new and accepted footwear silhouettes. The most valuable man in footwear, who wouldn’t give him all the resources he needs to keep flourishing. In recent years, Adidas has recently started corporating. Running unauthorized releases, colorways, and Yeezy day. Then the worst, stealing Yeezy designs. They have been stealing Yeezy employees to work on the Adidas mainline. Basically they are trying to do Yeezy without Ye. A huge disrespect to Kanye. There has been a huge disconnect with Yeezy and Adidas. Jon Wexler, who has created the perfect marriage between Adidas and Yeezy, has left recently. And it seems like a very bad hire with Daniel Cherry, a non-creative. Why would they hire him without any consent from Kanye to work with Yeezy brand. A Ye quote aimed at DC “venture capitalist who’s only adventure is capitalism…can’t create so they try to out-count the creatives. die slow.”
Yeezy never was a numbers game. It was heavily an artistic and idea-led brand. So when you have creatively unvaluable people, thinking they’re valuable because they are “business savvy”, they typically tend to diminish creative value, because they don’t understand it. They conflate numbers and value, which tends to make a terrible and destructive pairing for the progression of creative value.
“Conflating numbers and value has been one of the most destructive aspects to culture, enabled by execs. It puts this ticking time bomb on the culture it is set on. When that culture’s stock crashes. They don’t care. They never cared what happened to the culture or the field they are in. They just have the luxury to play musical chairs and get another executive job for whatever absurd reason.”
-OssyP
With seeing the decisions under the era of DC, it has been very bad decision making. He is definitely unqualified and should be fired from Adidas. Like when you make the absurd decision as an apparel and sneaker company, to hire the Head of DC comic books, where apparently he wasn’t successful either. That’s like getting the head of Pepsi to takeover Apple, an absolutely absurd move that would be. It just shows the heads of Adidas not really knowing what they’re doing. And they’re probably trending more downward than upward. I think bad business like this is more common, Kanye just got lucky with Jon Wexler and Adidas.
You can also look at Ye joining the very mundane GAP brand. He revived a dying brand within moments of announcing his addition to the team, with the brand going up $2 billion in value immediately. It is certain that most people were not shopping at the GAP. Within a few years, GAP has made a complete turnaround. Yeezy GAP collections, also with Balenciaga have been amazing. Lots of tasteful and desirable designs. With success like that, maybe you should make him the Head of GAP. Give him all the resources he needs to create for GAP. He literally is the entire catalyst of making GAP as valuable as it is today. And it absurdly doesn’t happen. They really haven’t listened to what he wanted for the collaboration, and also stole his design blatantly to sell themselves on their own mainline collection, blatantly disrespectful. You would think GAP would be thankful for Ye’s contribution to their team, but they still move like corporate. Just ignore him. When you make an absurdly dumb decision to not respect the man that saved GAP’s lifeline, you absolutely deserve the demise.
You just wonder why these companies’ heads and executives have the inability to value creatives. They should understand they can’t create the value. They typically aren’t great at housing the talent either. They’re blessed to have the creatives, creating value for the company. But instead, GAP and Adidas make absurd decisions to the person that gave them a huge bulk of their value.
It would be nice to see Ye house Yeezy independently, but he has to fight for his rights to the products of Yeezy. In old-fashion corporate-fashion. They’ll attempt to convince you that you need them, but when you want to leave they try to hold on for dear life to you. Like Gap and Adidas working together to send restrictions to Yeezy, trying to remove his ability to create anything. Of course a spineless vulture would attempt to destroy and try to enact that on one of the most impactful creatives. They have no care for the culture they destroy. It’s like the music industry doing their best to restrict music artists from retaining their own masters, from the music They Themselves created.
This structure seems to be patternistic. A pattern that resembles a psychopathic structure. Siphoning creatives of their lifeline and creations, while also pigeon holding and leveraging them to accept very low compensation for their work. These infrastructures were built long before the conceptions of any artist today’s mothers. The infrastructures were set in stone already. Basically for whatever facet or field, these corporations and labels have monopolized all the access to resources or resources in general to create in their respective fields. So that anyone who would want to take part has to go through them. They need creatives to flourish, so they decapitated creatives’ ability, to create a need for creatives, to need infrastructures that they own. But that isn’t the optic though. The optics is that creatives should be grateful for the opportunity to be able to use the infrastructures. These infrastructures have been passed down, changing the rules and restructuring the system, to assure that the need for their infrastructure is still there.
Typically how psychopathic or narcissistic relationships are, and they are very resemblant of entertainment and other industries. A psychopath/narcissist sees a person or collective to siphon and use, to leach on to. They charm you and promise you these grand dreams, since they chose you, “you are special.” Which puts people in this vulnerable state, that makes them blind to the evil in the system they can’t see. That’s when they get their claws into you. You guys are attached to each other now. The siphoning starts.
If you try to find your value, they will diminish and destroy you. They want to keep you weak, not able to stand on your two feet. They need you to stay dependent on them. If you find out how to be self-sufficient, you don’t need their business anymore, you can go work on your own. That’s when they go out their way to make it their business to stop that. You’ll see the most cruel acts for them to keep you in a pigeonhole, maintain leverage over you, in a decapitating fashion. They don’t want you to have a lifeline outside of them. Mainly because they have no lifeline without creatives. So they architected a way for the creatives not to have a lifeline without them, like trying to devalue and diminish them. But also they have so much ownership of all the music already, so much fortune. So why do they still continue to be this intense, and simply it’s a sadistic game for them. There seems to be this pleasure, that’s connected to “F***ing the artist,” basically tricking them into a terrible deal, where you hear about the artist getting “raped” in their contracts. It’s this consistent game that happens through multiple industries, and these people can’t seem to stop. It’s not in their nature to stop. Their nature seems to be that they have to win, no matter how absurd what constitutes a win, and how far they’ll go to win. They will never stop.
Joe Budden vs. Complex & Spotify
Joe Budden is a former rapper turned media personality. Who also had bad dealings with the entertainment industry. That’s a lot of the topics that he talks about. The evils of the industry, and how creatives can succeed and sustain a life in the industry.
He joined Complex and created a show Everyday struggle, a hit show. He created a very valuable show for Complex, probably top 3 ever for the platform. The most impactful Hip-Hop show of its era, where they were getting constant engagement. Sparking multiple and consistent culture conversations. Complex execs just didn’t seem grateful for Joe & Ak’s contribution, didn’t seem appreciative.
They just seemed invested in siphoning their value and seeing how they can milk advertisement money out of them. Also they tried to see how they could emulate the hit on their own.
They didn’t respect their contribution, and didn’t value them. The execs think they are the ones creating the value. Where that might work on others, it doesn’t work on people who understand their value. So there’s gonna be a lot of tension and budging there.
It’s another example of in the creative space, corporate overvaluing themselves. They don’t understand the spaces they are trying to maneuver in. Trying to be a venture capitalist in a space that doesn’t maneuver like that. They are typically blind to the fact of the fraudulent nature of conflating numbers and value, a terrible creative metric. Not being able to assess impact or intrinsic value on the content, work, or product alone.
Typically in these spaces you’re dealing with narcissists and psychos, where all they can seek out is sparkly and shiny objects and trophies(big numbers), that dictates success for them. There’s a reason that billboard charts and awards became the biggest accolades and symbol for success to artists.
Then Joe Budden Podcast stint at Spotify. He was very early in the podcast world. Doing it independently for a long time. Creating a very valuable and watchable product, also rewatchable. The show has been able to garner a huge audience. Which got attention from Pre-podcast deal Spotify. Fortunately they had mutual interest, they both wanted to understand the data from each other.
If a 3 minute song can stream a lot and make the labels or artist a lot of money. What about an 1-3hr podcast that someone does weekly or multiple times a week, especially if that podcast can garner multiple hundred thousands to millions of views an episode. That’s like multiple albums a week. This has to be a tremendous amount of value.
If you look at streaming services, and social media as real estate, which it kind’ve is, a digital property. If someone can make a product that can keep someone on the digital property for long periods of time, which helps drive business to other products on the digital property. That has to be a tremendous amount of value. So what is the value of those streams? And that’s when corporate starts corporating again. Fudging with the numbers, and concealing the true value of things. So if you hit certain benchmarks and incentives in your contract, they can make situations where you didn’t hit them because clear values of streams aren’t being disclosed, so they can manipulate the numbers in their favor. They are starting to play these games again.
Like even though they get congratulated for being number 1 all year, “coincidentally” the system crashes, and Spotify loses their data to prove if JBP made the benchmarks, which makes them lose out on bonuses.
But instead they were offered used Rolexes, which is absurd. Then Spotify tried to offer a standard music type deal for their podcast, offering them only 20% out of 80/20 split for not only their podcast, but a network. They offered Joe a 360 deal basically, which is absurd, because a lot of the topics they talk about are bad industry deals, so it just showed corporate didn’t know much about what they were doing. Obviously with that being rejected, instead of losing a big show for the platform, Spotify went on to spend a lot of money to get other shows to attempt to keep them afloat. With recent reports, Spotify is being questioned by investors, because they spent a billion dollars on podcasts, but podcast revenue is only $215 million in 2021, which is very questionable. And their excuse is they’re still investing. Who would trust an entity like that to keep investing, they don’t seem like they know what they’re doing.
Dave Chappelle vs. Comedy Central
Dave Chappelle is one of the greatest comedians of all time. Creating one of the greatest comedy shows and one of the greatest sketch shows, The Chappelle Show. Like most entertainers, they are in need of a good pay day, an opportunity to be able to feed themselves or their families. People are in highly stressful situations, so the first chance they take to get out might not be the best one, but it’s one that gives you a bit of relief. People in those situations are prey to predators. The predatorial industry takes advantage of people in financial need and with lack of information. But why do these wealthy people in these corporations always look for people that are typically in poverty? Because like always, the people in the corporation don’t have the value. They can’t create it for themselves. They have to use creatives to create the value. That’s why it’s always an ironically weird gesture that people in corporations or labels GO to creatives and flaunt to them how grateful they should be for the opportunity they got chosen, while also trying hard to convince them to use their services.
But anyways, Dave goes on to sign the contract with Comedy Central for the Dave Chappelle show, but unfortunately a bad one, that wouldn’t have Dave’s best interest. But that’s not how it was presented to him. It was presented to him by his lawyer at negotiation as a good deal. But like always what if they are all in cahoots. Setting him up to be trapped. Which leaves him having no leverage for his show rights, but luckily he does have some creative control to create the product he wants. Dave goes on to create one of the most successful shows ever. One of the greatest DVD releases, record breaking release. Makes Comedy Central a formidable network. Doing so many great things for the network. Again in corporate-fashion, they don’t seem too appreciative. Dave gave Comedy Central its biggest break. Corporate started corporating again. Why wouldn’t you compensate him and give him the resources to keep producing, sounds like another absurd decision by corporate. There just seems to be this realm of creativity and success, where when some people get to, there seems to be this ceiling that you’re not allowed to break through. When you get there, all forces are used against them from doing so. Dave doesn’t want to resign, things just don’t feel right. You have corporate thinking they understand what’s right, but they’re just being wrong about everything with the show.
So when Dave starts showing signs of not coming back, that’s when the stories come out. Dave has Pneumonia, he has writer’s block, he’s crazy, he’s on drugs, he’s on Crack, etc. What type of paranoia does one have when the media is saying you’re crazy, and your whole environment is trying to make you feel crazy, offering you psychotic medication? Sounds like the most absurd situation to be in. Yes, there was $50 million dollars on the table, but you would have to accept a life of craziness.
People could say why wouldn’t you tell anyone. But in pre-social media days, there weren’t accessible means to mass communications. Trying to expose the people who run the media, is basically telling on the media to the media. That information you want to expose won’t travel far. Also if the corporation is willing to give Dave $50 million dollars, how much do you think they’re making off of him, especially when he sold a million DVD copies in a week alone. This is for sure a billion dollar business. A fortune created mainly by Dave Chappelle, and he only makes $50 million of that. Then he can’t create another one because they own his name and likeness. Walking away from that doesn’t seem too crazy.
It’s less of the one the boldest or bravest move in history, which it still is. It was unprecedented to walk out like that. But still it was less bold, and more the move that needed to happen. And like that, because of the stupidity of Comedy Central, they lose the biggest comedian star. Not the 50 million dollar man, but the billion dollar man walked out those doors.
You get to understand why these corporations are so controlling of artists now. These artists are worth so much more than they’re paid. It’s absurd and criminal the lack of money they retain from their own work. You would think there would be more outrage. But corporations work hard on keeping the information and the data away from the artists. Also decapitating all the access to resources to do it on your own. So you have to work under these corporations, but since you work under them, they don’t have to divulge any of the information, and criminally manipulate and give you exponentially less than what you deserve, many wouldn’t know because their true value is withheld from them.
50 Cent vs. Starz
50 Cent has had a very successful music career. Was able to produce a lot of massive songs and albums. He went into the television world and joined the world Starz. Starz before doesn’t really have any notable original programming. Then 50 Cent comes with the Super hit show Power. Power is one of the greatest shows, definitely Starz most successful show. 50 Cent visibly and undeniably brought over a massively intense market and fanbase over to Starz. Then he didn’t just create a spin-off show, he created a whole spin-off universe with multiple shows. Record breaking shows for the network. Also an insane feat of having the 4 most watched shows in the African-American household. He has a whole market in the palm of his hands, plus more. And he wants to continue to grow. The people love what 50 Cent is doing. What he is doing is some of the most amazing feats from a creative, to create a whole network. A whole world. Because honestly, 50 Cent isn’t just the majority of Starz, he is Starz. They would be a dead network without him. He single-handedly has been keeping them afloat. So does corporate appreciate what 50 Cent has done for them? And predictably in corporate-fashion, they didn’t. Why would anyone make the absurd decision not to give him all the resources he needs to produce more. If he leaves and takes all his shows with him, that would completely strip Starz dry, they have nothing. But that doesn’t stop corporate form corporating. The marriage between 50 Cent and Starz seems like it’s on its last leg. 50 Cent hasn’t liked the treatment, especially after producing multiple record breaking shows for the network. You have corporate choosing to renew a show no one knows about, over one of 50 Cent’s shows, that has better viewership than the one that is getting renewed. It is blatant disrespect, corporate playing those games again. Like having episodes leak, that’s more of a rare thing, “coincidentally” rare. Then they start changing the rules. Trying to add a new mandate for a completely different demographic than the already successful ones on the network, that are all made by 50 Cent. So attempting to move the goal post/finish line, that maybe certain incentives could be connected to. And this is speculative, but I would guess that 50 Cent is being underpaid. Sometimes people don’t want to play the games, they’re just gonna want to leave. Hopefully Starz gets the demise they deserve, because based on 50 Cent’s track record, I trust he could go create a hit show somewhere else. Corporate’s track record shows that they’re going to crash due to their own absurd decision and twisted ego, that can’t let go of this game to control.
Birdman & Master P Monumental Music Deals
You never really hear anybody beating the music industry. But two acts from New Orleans that got to keep their integrity and leverage are Birdman & Master P. It’s insanely unfathomable the deals they got, the situations they were able to have. Because labels and corporations never want the artist to flourish. But they were able to get about 80/20 advantage splits, and keep their masters. Both of them had a deep self made background. They were already working their music to the best of their abilities, growing their leverage. You can’t lowball them because they are already self sufficient, they aren’t weak, they can stand on their own. They have the leverage.
Master P’s situation is insane. He starts off self made, making a name for himself, getting buzz. It’s enough to get the attention of a big exec, who offers him amongst the best of deals, which is still a “rape” contract where he retains less than 15% of the splits. They talked to him like he was crazy if he leaves, also that he wouldn’t have another chance again. And he turned down the opportunity of a lifetime, million dollar opportunity, with only $500 in his pocket. He just understood that he was worth exponentially more than what they offered. When he gets home, now understanding his value, invigorates him. Doing all he can to invest in himself, selling out of the trunk of his car and promoting in his city.
He saw that Michael Jackson was one of the highest paid and percentage artists retaining 22% of the splits. So he called up Michael’s Lawyer, which cost him $25,000. Instead of all those regular music deals, he was told to take a distribution deal. Where he can get an 85/15 advantage split, he would just have to invest in and do all the marketing and promo himself. Unheard of in the music industry. Execs let him do that probably because they didn’t expect him to do much, heavily underestimating his abilities. He put an extreme amount of work and investments into the marketing himself, going city to city. Which led to his album going gold(500,000 copies), for about $20 each(one typical album sale), while being able to retain 85% of that. Which is an insane amount of money for an artist. The label was most likely pissed, they weren’t able to charge him inflated fraudulent fees, like they normally do. So for future projects they were trying to tag on big marketing fees, playing those games that corporate does.
When Master P is trying to find an itemized breakdown of where the marketing money goes(maybe he audited them), he’s seeing that it’s not even close to what they are charging. So here’s where it gets crazy. Master P plays it cool. He created another label, so he can sign and bring up some artists. He asked the label for all the marketing money upfront. When the artist and people are looking for marketing money. He was basically like, that’s his money that he took back from the label, and left the industry for good. Which definitely left the label even more pissed, because it was definitely a lot of money. By 1998, Master P was already a 100 Million Dollar Man. Someone finally won against the industry, He was able to go off and grow his own empire.
Birdman also had an insane deal with Universal. Another self made entity. They were already working extremely hard on their own, like dropping 31 projects over a 6 year period. They wanted the No Limit situation like Master P.
With the help of Wendy Day they were able to get 75k sales on a project which got the attention of labels. After being very relentless and staying firm on their integrity. Cash Money bringing in multiple artists and projects to Universal annually, they were able to secure a $30 Million Dollar deal, with an 80/20 advantage split, and getting to own the masters. Also an unheard clause to get execs to teach the artists about how to do marketing. How in the world did he get this deal, especially with an entity like Universal. A deal that made him a billionaire and masters that make him a lot of money annually.
Labels were definitely pissed because these two were definitely painted like the bad guys. Especially Birdman, his likeness was destroyed for years by the media, that everyone believed. When he is the one of the best guys in Hip-Hop. In the end breaking bread with a lot of his artists, giving them a huge unheard amount of money, money that artists never see. Two people find out how to make money in the music industry, and the corporations go and change all the rules again. They definitely have had meetings about these two to ensure a situation like this ever happens again.
And it’s like, why? You see that it’s a problem with corporate that people are treated fairly. Because it’s not like Birdman and Master P conned the labels. They were just some of the first people to get paid their worth, and they were honestly underpaid. So it becomes clearly evident, they look at those artists like how they have the audacity to retain the money they earned, retain the value they created. It sounds completely absurd, when they invested in themselves with their own money initially, and continued to put money up themselves to market, when the label did minimal work, and they had a problem with the money Master P and Birdman made. It’s psychotic to have a problem with that. Have a problem with not being able to steal their money. Only two people did this, and that called for changes to the whole industry.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a very underrated movie. Everyone should go watch if you haven’t yet. Everyone killed it in that movie.
Ma Rainey is an artist from the 20’s. Amazingly talented singer. Enough for her to have a manager. They paint the film like she’s this big grumpy hard to deal with black woman. You feel the unease of her bossing the white people around, suggesting she’s not grateful for the opportunity. She’s taking her time with everything, and she’s changing things around. You sense the frustration from the whites as to why she isn’t more grateful, wasting their time and equipment.
Then she talks about how much they don’t value her. They just want to put her voice in a box. They’re making a big deal about everything, also fussing about the money, but she understands that it’s not much of a cost being wasted, especially for the money they are making off of her. She is creating the value that they desperately want to siphon. Her understanding of that leverage she has, she knows them trying to make her feel ungrateful is a facade. They need her way more than she needs them, and understanding that, she will do as she pleases. Make the best of her time. She understands once they get her voice and signature, they don’t care what happens to her.
That Blues, that real authentic Blues, you can’t get it nowhere else relatively. It was authentic black music, it couldn’t be duplicated if you didn’t have that thing in you. Understanding that feeling, understanding that culture. Something about being black granted them access to the abilities of the blues, the whites just didn’t have. You can’t just copy it, Blues is not something to copy. There’s a musical reference and rhythm to follow when you’re playing with a band, but besides that you go off intuitive feeling and flow, and that trust and improvisation between a band, is a really intimate experience. You also have to have that groove, that twang. There’s a reason they have to get black people from the other side of town for their services. There’s no white people locally that have that ability. That’s just culture you just can’t buy or steal, but it doesn’t stop the whites from trying.
Levee is a talented songwriter. He probably can make smash hits. Reason Mel, the producer who can’t produce, wants Levee’s music. After Mel gets Levee’s music, Mel tries to devalue and diminish Levee and his music. Saying it’s not good enough, but for whatever reason he seems like he desperately wants to take the music off his hands, but trying to play it off like it’s not valuable. Coercing and forcing Levee to accept $5 a piece for his music.
Then you see why he wanted it so desperately. To take the credit and give it to his white band. It was a very bland rendition of what Levee could do, extremely generic. They just don’t get IT. But that doesn’t matter, luckily for Mel, because the times they were in.
Black artists’ music isn’t probably as accessible at the time, not able to reach anywhere. Also they probably don’t have the resources to record like they would want. So there probably isn’t much black music for the masses to compare to. They don’t have the original reference to tell how off the mimicked version is.
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Some takeaways
Corporate is an absolutely and egregiously overrated entity, especially when it comes to corporate for creative fields. Corporate has this sort of prestige like it takes value to be there, but that is terribly wrong in the creative space, they are some very worthless people, that have no value or business in the spaces they maneuver in. But them having a corporate title gives them this inflated purpose in their head. Extremely overvaluing their purpose, constantly making terrible creative decisions. Why are you gonna work with creatives if you’re gonna constantly ignore them, especially when they are the ones who bring the value.
If you aren’t an invested person in a certain creative field, if you don’t have care for it, what makes someone think they should have a voice or a say in the creative direction.
Corporate and labels have this sentiment that their respective art field that they work with would be nothing without them. And without these soulless business entities, I believe the art world and the world in general would flourish exponentially more. The only reason they believe that is because they monopolized the creative resources, and made them inaccessible, but if these resources would be open to the public, corporate and labels would be nothing without creatives.
This psychotic industry structure has to be dismantled. It’s pure evil, that’s not a hyperbole, it’s objectively pure evil. The audacity to think you can claim ownership to the majority of the art in the world. A very unjustifiable amount, because there is definitely an extreme amount of money laundering going on in the industry. There is no justifiable way to account for all the fees and money taken from artists. People can say these creatives are doing bad business. But the business itself is bad, the industry’s agenda is to not allow creatives to do good business. They change all the rules, hide all the information, do predatory business, in order to keep the status quo of creatives taking bad deals, making it feel normal that bad deals are the standard if everyone is taking them. Some people aren’t doing bad business, these corporations have the ability to move goal post and change rules all of the sudden to screw the artist, who sometimes were on their way rightfully to get a good deal.
Also I didn’t twist any information to fit my narrative. It’s mainly information right from the primary source. Situations and people that have nothing to do with each other, sometimes being almost 100 years apart. But they all kept reciting the same issues. They did absolutely amazing work for their label or corporation. Creating a tremendous amount of value, sometimes record breaking, and bringing a big viewership or customer base. Each time the execs and corporate didn’t seem appreciative. Creatives get met with blatant disrespect every time. Execs trying to tell creatives they should be grateful for the opportunity. Execs absurdly thinking they don’t need them. They attempt to replicate the creatives’ work so they can do it themselves, which typically fails. Then they utilize the media to try to destroy creatives’ character and likeness, trying to make them look crazy. All tactics to try to force them to align with how the company wants them, control them.
Threaten to destroy creative’s livelihood anytime they get in this certain realm of creativity and success. Asking why they do this every time is an obsolete question. A psycho is gonna be a psycho, same for a narcissist, it’s naturally in their nature, that is simply what these structures are. You’re going to drive yourself crazy trying to understand. All you have to understand is that you have to find a way around utilizing these entities, or organizing ways to completely dismantle them.
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Cancer Culture: The Boys Club, Weapons of Mass Corruption and Destruction. (Blogumentary Pt.2)
Recently, I’ve been noticing a decline in multiple cultures and industries. Like the decline of Hip-Hop. Which is similar to the decline and demise of Rock & Roll. Where that can be connected to a decline in radio. The decline of media, in terms of pop culture media content and/or tv shows. Decline in video games. Decline in footwear culture, etc.
It all seems routed from the same place. The Boys Club, the oligarchy. These people have the majority of influence of decisions in multiple cultures, corporations, and industries. Industries, corporations, and cultures that have a lot to do with human well-being, the people holding those positions, positions that are supposed to be of service to people. But instead, they have mainly a vested interest in themselves, and within their small group. They have no care or respect for the cultures and industries they take part in. Just use and abuse them for their own agenda, they are cancerous creatures, once they infiltrate their host, the degradation and maybe demise of the host is inevitable. Have no care for the cultures and industries they destroy. Having a consistent track record of making egregiously bad decisions for the general public, the people they are supposed to serve, in an attempt to protect their own interest. Have no care if they completely crash the stock of cultures or industries, because they’ve done it on multiple occasions. And it doesn’t matter because they don’t care about or what happens to the culture or industry they crashed, or the people that it affects. In the event that happens, they can protect or even increase their value, and get an executive position somewhere else, even though they just finished bombing an industry or corporation.
One industry that has been terribly corrupted by The Boys Club, is finance and the economy. This Boys Club bombed the economy and the financial industry, which directly affected millions. I watched a Non-Fiction Horror Doc recently called ‘Inside Job’(2010). It’s about how deregulation led to our economy and housing crisis, and how so many people got away with it. You have a good government when it can protect itself from corruption, it’s regulated properly. That’s how you keep things in order and keep a good balance. Then The Boys Club intervened and started deregulating everything. You’ll start to see all these big corporations basically becoming these criminal organizations. But due to deregulation of certain systems, where before they were limited, now they can grow and become monopolies.
Since they are so big, they can now influence a lot of decisions, rules, and laws in their favor, where they can get bailed out, or simply get away from egregious crimes. And they did over, over, and over again. Dishonestly promising each time that it wouldn’t happen again. They couldn’t help themselves, they won’t stop.
Then you have the derivative markets. Basically, you could use these financial products to virtually bet on anything, things like “rise or fall of oil prices, the bankruptcy of a company, even the weather.” This created a 50 trillion dollar unregulated market. With the influence of The Boys Club, they were able to get congress to ban the regulations of derivatives, so these people were free to do whatever, and caused a financial explosion.
Also you had the subprime loan boom for mortgages. Basically, loans that were extremely risky, certainly couldn’t get paid back, were being given to borrowers at record high rates. With no risk to lenders because they would sell it to investors. Then the investment banks were packaging these terrible loans as CDO’s and getting rating agencies to present those CDO’s as AAA, basically a high creditworthy rating loan that will definitely get paid back, that would get sold to investors.
Why did rating agencies give these toxic products that carried loans that are definitely not getting paid off AAA ratings? And basically, they get paid more for giving out AAA ratings, and don’t really get paid for bad ones. Rating agencies are making billions of dollars by giving bad-faith high AAA ratings to CDO’s. So they are incentivized to give CDO’s high ratings even if it’s a bad CDO(loans), and they weren’t liable if they were wrong. Basically this Securitization chain, basically nobody was liable for these extreme loans, it was at the time risk-free to the lenders and investment banks. Reason they were trying to give as much loans out as they could, lenders and investment banks made a fortune off of it.
So everything is incentivized to screw investors and mortgaging house buyers. Investors are probably thinking since its high rating CDO’s(loans), it will definitely get paid back. And lenders were giving away $100s of billions worth of loans to house buying borrowers, anybody could get a mortgage, even if they had poor credit. Investment Banks were able to sell all these loans to investors and make hundreds of billions of dollar profits off money that wasn’t going to be real.
So while investment bankers are making a short term fortune, it was a ticking time bomb for investors and house buyers in the long run, when at some point there’s gonna come a time to account for all this fraudulent money. It was an unlimited money fraud ponzi scheme. A structure created by a psychopath(s), you can’t be an empathetic person and be able to do mass destruction amount of damage to people’s lives, for an unnecessarily excessive amount of greed. They changed all the rules which allowed them to create a criminal-proof, and regulation-proof ponzi schemes and money fraud systems. Then it gets even worse when these bankers are getting encouraged to take even more extreme risks, where it’s no risk to them, but could destroy the firms they work for, or knowingly destroy the whole economy.
Back to the derivatives, investment banks that were selling CDO’s(loans) to investors, saying they were high quality creditworthy products and definitely going to get paid back, the same investment bankers were betting those same CDO’s were going to default and fail. Then taking it further by selling CDOs specifically designed, so that the more money their customers lost, the more money their company made. This should be extremely illegal. It’s clear insider trading. How is this allowed? Which is insane levels of absurdity.
For some absurd reason, the people that are causing and setting up mass destruction and corruption are getting appointed to some of the highest financial positions of the US government, like Henry Paulson for Secretary of Treasury.
Then the start of the official crisis in 2008 happened. Millions of foreclosure for the year. Lenders failed when they couldn’t sell their loans to investment banks anymore and many loans went bad. Then when the CDO market failed, it left investment banks holding onto hundreds of billions of dollars of loans and CDOs they couldn’t sell. And the effects this had wasn’t just the investors and home buyers, it catastrophically affected the whole world.
This ponzi scheme was a weapon of mass global destruction. They crashed the whole economy. Banks were losing all their money and going bankrupt. Other institutions had debts of billions of dollars. Led to millions of people losing their homes. Also globally, many millions of people lost their jobs. It destroyed the job markets, shutting down many businesses that employed many people.
While the world was going through a crisis. Companies and people that caused the crisis were getting bailed out. Costing taxpayers over $150 billion, while the architects and bankers of the crisis cashed in on their bets that it would crash.
The Boys Club are protecting and denying their investment banks from getting sued. So they are getting off criminally free. All the architects and top executives of the crisis are getting billions of dollars in payouts, severances, and bonuses, while the world is going through the crisis they caused. They’re resigning from their jobs, and taking an executive position somewhere else.
When these executives get questioned on these matters, they “coincidentally” don’t remember, “coincidentally” didn’t realize what happened at the time of the buildup to the crisis. Coming up with the most fraudulent excuses. They gaslit a whole nation. While many came to these architects warning them about the crisis, they denied, and assured that the economy was ok, sometimes even while the crisis was going on.
After a while you would think these people would leave the game. But they were just hooked to it. It became a pissing contest. Some of the most absurd purchases, like multiple mansions, multiple planes and helicopters, big budget for prostitutes. They just kept going. They have a sadistic urge to take advantage of people, they take pleasure in it. The world had to go through a whole crisis, because of their leisurely sadistic game, just adding to the absurdity. And they could do this all with no repercussions, no risk at all. They’re playing a video game simulation with all the cheat codes entered. Someone has to stop them, because they will never feel bad enough to stop. The only time they voiced wrongdoings is when they felt they were about to get caught, but when they found a solution, they went right back to psychopathic ways.
It’s basically the story of American Psycho, and that movie dropped a decade prior, about an investment banker, that is no coincidence. American Psycho was a great depiction of what happened, the crisis was inevitable with these investment bankers in charge. They only care about their own interests. These guys terrorize society, and never face consequences for it. Cancerous creatures that plague the Earth, and it isn’t a metaphor, they are truly cancers of the Earth. They’re hooked to the lifestyle of self gain, terrorizing others, and getting away with it. Especially if they cause catastrophic damage, they may get worried when the jig is up, but when they understand they will always get bailed out, they simply go on and go back to continue the same lifestyle.
Also Don’t Look Up is a perfect movie to help describe this issue. The world can be facing an imminent crisis of word destruction. With The Boys Club’s cancerous presence, it can currently be. And they will constantly jargon you like the world is ok. You can’t trust these institutions, because while the general public is in danger, they only care about their interest. Whatever happens to the general public isn’t an important matter to them because they don’t care and don’t have empathy. So they will gaslight them forever, never giving them a true reality. They will find a way to preserve themselves regardless of what happens. A true psychotic structure.
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Reason for me writing all this. I’m a person with many different interests. I would be invested in different fields and industries. And I would see that there’s corruption in some of them, then I realized there was corruption in all of them. And the corruption was all resemblant of each other. The complaints about corruption were the same even though it’s from completely different industries. It was the same kind of person across different industries corrupting the same way. Then you realize sometimes it’s the same person corrupting and playing musical chairs in different industries. The pattern you recognize is too frequent not to realize.
This “Boys Club”, every major problem can be routed to them. Where they are taking jobs that are supposed to be of service to the world. But they corrupted it, and architected a way to service themselves “legally” and risk-free. They criminal-proof mass corruption and destruction. They have no interest in any of the services they take part of, have no care for the people when they hold the biggest positions that serve the people. They have no care if they destroy the industry they are a part of, because no matter what happens, they get to retain their luxuries, play musical chairs, and end up somewhere else. Psychos run most of the industries, especially ones that have to do with human well-being.
Just think of a world without The Boys Club. A world without economic deregulation, a world with a stable economy, one that didn’t go through a crisis. Think of a world without The Boys Club in the creative industry. An industry that doesn’t suffer from monopolization of creative resources to flourish and expand. A fair market for creatives allowing a fair chance for creatives to flourish. Thinking of flourishing cultures untapped by vultures. Removing them from other industries. Industries that do with human well-being. I didn’t even touch on Food, Environmental, Health, and Pharmaceutical industries, that the same people have a huge influence on the decisions for these industries, and making decisions for self gain, and egregiously ignoring the needs of the people. They are cancer. The Boys Club is destroying many sectors of society, so getting rid of them would make monumental changes. Would put the world in remission. Contrary to what they’re saying, it is very possible for a world without The Boys Club to survive, and the world would most likely flourish. They are corruption and destruction.
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Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis Doc. Review: The Reunion of the Destruction of Housing & Economic Crisis
[Added on to this whole Blogumentary Oct 16. 2022, by Oslin Pierrette]
-The reunion of the the members who caused the financial crisis come together to discuss the Housing & economic crisis of 2008-
This was a great Documentary, not because we got answers that the people wanted. We didn’t get the people that were heavily involved in causing the crisis apologies, didn’t feel their remorse, didn’t give their accountability that they destroyed the economy.
The reason it’s a great documentary is because it solidified that these people are textbook psychopaths. The housing and economy crisis was a blatantly clear Ponzi scheme. It was pure evil, that only evil people would be able to do the things that the people that caused the crisis could do. They destroyed millions of lives catastrophically, and benefited off it massively. So they bring some of the people in charge to speak for a documentary. Obviously there’s an elephant in the room, the biggest one maybe ever. What happened? What and who caused and should be accountable for the crisis? And that was egregiously glossed over, just ignored.
Where it gets even intensely more psychopathic than it already was. Was the fact that they are trying to act like they saved the world and the United States. They are trying to act like they are Batman, a hero that doesn’t get applause. Trying to make it seem like the people don’t understand the good things they did for the economy, like the people are ungrateful. The amount of gaslighting they are doing is out of this world. The people are rightfully complaining, because millions of people have been catastrophically affected. Why would they applaud a poor cleanup of an egregious crisis that should’ve never happened.
Textbook psychopathy, people thinking we should be grateful for their cancerous presence. Saying it could’ve been worse. To the millions of people that lost their homes and jobs, it can’t get much worse.
The world is riddled with these cancerous people that have been destroying the well-being of humans, that they have no care for. Just care for their self interests. They were able to be a part of some of the most egregious crimes, and manipulate it where they made it crime-free, penalty-free.
This was an absolutely egregious watch from the buffoons in charge.
Like dealing with a psychopath. You should never expect to receive closure from them. You should expect more BS. And that’s what this was.
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