Recently during an interview with Billboard magazine R&B artist and producer The Dream,responsible for Rihanna’s hit Umbrella, shared his thoughts on race and how it relates to the music industry.
When asked about record labels and his solution to their “evil” he stated ” artists are treated like slaves. We have terrible contracts, we have streaming services that pay one-tenth of a cent per play, we have no laws to protect us. Unionize the artists and songwriters. Give them the power to say, No, we won’t only take a few cents while you sit back and make all the money [when] we do all the work.”
The Dream was asked about his thoughts regarding Taylor Swift’s open letter to apple to which he replied “I can support it, but I could never do the same,” The-Dream said. “I’m black. It’s a race thing. It’s always going to be a race thing. For one, if I took my records off of Spotify, it would affect the people who listen to my music for free and may not have the means otherwise. Taylor Swift fans probably have the means to go and buy a Taylor Swift record.”
“If you got a hit and you’re white, there are no limits to what you can do,” he said. “If you’re black and you have a hit today but can’t do it again tomorrow, then your ass is out of here. When the industry uses you up, that’s it. You’re gone. It’s a constant battle for our culture. We can’t say no to radio, we can’t say no to Spotify, and we can’t have a concert because nobody will come. And the whole time, everybody is taking from our culture to enhance the pop side of things. By the way, the pop side doesn’t mean you have to be white. Bruno Mars is pop. Nobody listens to Bruno Mars like he’s a black artist. Which I’m sure for him, he’s like, ‘Thank God.’ There are urban artists and then there are pop artists, and urban artists get things taken from them. We create the swag, and everybody knows it.”
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