By SN
Wednesday August 26, 2009
Techdirt – Aug 25th 2009:
It’s the story of Roxanne Shante, one of the first female hip hop stars, who came out with a hit song in the 80s (when she was 14-years-old), leading the way for other female rappers. Of course, like so many 
other artists, she found out that the big record labels weren’t so great after all. After two albums, when she realized that her label was basically stealing from her, she called it quits from music. At age 19, however, she remembered that Warner Music has put a clause in her contract, promising to “fund her education for life.” She figures they put that in as a “throwaway, never believing a teen mom in public housing would attend college.” But, attend college, she did. She didn’t just get a bachelor’s degree, but went all the way through to a PhD. in psychology.
Of course, Warner Music, already having done plenty to try to cheat her out of her contract, worked 
hard not to pay. But the dean at, Marymount Manhattan College, where she attended for some of both her undergraduate and graduate degrees, read over the clause and simply kept sending bills to Warner Music. Warner (so nice of them, as per usual) ignored the invoices until Shante threatened to go public with the story of Warner Music Group not living up to their contract promises on something so basic as funding her education. In the end, Warner Music had to pay up around $217,000 for Shante’s education
Perfect – a very smart lady indeed. And a good kick in the balls of a very cynical record industry. Why on earth should we support those bastards?
I wish a shift of paradigm, that we come full circle, the record industry dies and that ‘something’ take over where the creator benefits and there are no leeches anymore. The internet has all what it takes as far as distribution goes. What channel can be created to secure old and new artists quality channel? For starters, the current music providers should drop their labels, and meet their audience in live performances, and not expect to be paid zillion of dollars as in the past if they are among the 5 – 10 big sellers… John C. wrote more than one excellent article about that 5 – 6 years ago I recall. Now, who will be the smart guy to create the new platform?
consider Warner Music “Gitmo Nation Entertainment Industry” many friiends/ artists have gone in and never saw the light of day again!
COOL!
Which was the dummy in _that_ “dummy contract?”
#23, Uncle P,
I suspect there are quite a few more people with similar contracts. As they were minors this would have been a way to get the parents signature. And I doubt very much that there were many artists that ever took advantage of this clause.
Seriously she could keep getting PhDs until she dies and the label would have to pay for them all. Guinness said the record is eight. She only has eight more to go. I am glad she was able to get what was coming too her. Most musicians don’t.
Record labels are crooks and the only way that artist can make money is to get their own CDs pressed and distribute them themselves at concerts and stuff. My friend’s band got a contract with a record label and it basically said that the band would have to pay back the label if it didn’t make money. Needless to say they didn’t sign it.
If book authors got contracts with terms as bad as music artists, then no one would write books for publishing companies. Self publishing would have become a lot more prevalent. The tighter the record labels squeeze, the more musicians and music fans slip out of their hands.
Oh hell yeah Roxanne Shante was my shit back in the day.
And if you haven’t heard her music before…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsaepyi8MR0
Now you know
oops I just realized I cussed. Feel free to change it to “sheet” sorry. I was just too happy for Roxanne
6, The girl got what she deserved because she took responsibility for herself and didn’t ask the government for a handout.
Rooooo-xanne
sha-a-a-a-a-nte
(Biz markie doing the human beatbox)
Hell yeah!
Great story…I had friends that were cheated by CBS records back in the 80′s. Way to stick it back to them. You go girl…