The founder of Dreamxoxo Music and Entertainment record label, Emmanuel Onyinye Promise popularly known as Whaiskee has provided a perspective on the reasons the relationships between musical artists and their labels don’t usually end in harmony.
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According to the entertainment entrepreneur, the underlying factor is a matter of trust on both sides of the divide, suggesting surreptitiously that artists are usually the culprits while not altogether absolving the labels of complicity.

“To my understanding the major reason is trust and others are artists listening to a third party outside the management after signing the recording deal. This could kill the deal and often the artists start acting and having some unmentioned issues which is very common with most record labels today,” he said.

Record labels typically set the terms and conditions of artist contracts in their favor. In the case of newly signed artists, record labels can control the type of music they record, which can include everything from the way the music sounds to the song lyrics. They also control album cover art in most cases. This much Whaiskee said he is well aware.

When the question was put to him that record labels more often than not exploit their artists, the man from Awgu local government area of Enugu State, “Exploit? Who comes up with all these?,” he countered . “A label is ready to put up millions to promote your talent and make money for two, and you thinking of exploitation? I will even say only 35% of artists signed bring back money spent on them, so this proves that this business is risky. Imagine, all these artists who have made it you are seeing are just about 35%. There are more than 75% that didn’t make it and investment wasted.”
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The record label boss however stated that not all record labels and artist contracts end in a mess or at the courtroom. He posits that every contract gone sour there are many more that have pulled through and are having a blissful time.

Hear him: “There are many successful label-artist relationships. The relationships that went bad are just few, but they trend more than the successful ones. There are many labels that actually have good relationships, and that same label also has relationships with another artist that didn’t go well. I believe it’s an individual thing, some artists are content with their contract and want it to work, while some artists just want to sabotage the contract ( laughs). Sometimes it might be the label, they may be running at a heavy loss, and finding it hard to sponsor the artist projects , and sometimes it might be that the artist couldn’t produce good music.”

He is an entrepreneur, businessman, marketer and show promoter . He is the brain behind Dreamxoxo Music and Entertainment and also the founder of Dream Star Marketing Plus Media in UAE with a registered license. He is also a music artist, record label owner and a recording studio owner.
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