Im just reading into the articles now which arent official, but there is a slew of artists that have been dropped as part of labels trying to save their asses to close out this fourth quarter. I'll have the full story in a few, its all not officially posted yet but im guessing its true because its coming from the same source who reported Kelis being dropped. more in a few minutes, im laughing too hard at reading the labels excuses....
[Edited 11/24/07 16:41pm]

I read that Solange has left Columbia to Geffen, Amerie has been dropped by Columbia, and Mya was dropped for spending $3 mill of Motown's money...

Yeah i love to hear these labels spin their bullshit and hipocracy. They claim that MYA wasted 3 million dollars of their money on promotion? Oh really, im curious what MOTOWN spent 3 million dollars on, truth is, Motown shot themselves in the foot with this release with pushing it back 11 times, they did the same thing with Stevie's last record and people basically got fed up and didnt care. Name they blame the artist for dollars on promotion if things dont go their way, really, so what can Rihanna expect for the 20 million spent on promotion and an album that has sold 800,000 to date, im thinking these PROMO departments are nothing more than what "Blackwater" is in Iraq, a place to funnel money for the suits. As for Solange she was Dropped and then signed by Geffen. But im not surprised that was spun that way because Mr. Knowles wouldnt want to hear she was "droppped", and of course Amerie was dropped but really she was done with this label after the last record, they released her third album overseas and promoted it there only mainly to just keep her out of sight. As for Mya her album was issued in Japan as a digital only release, i found out the basics on why this happend and mainly it was that MYA had paid all the recording fees for the record and did it at her home studio, so she was closing in on sueing Motown for breach of the contract and of course all her recording fees, in the end they just released her over there because she was refusing to do anymore promo for them since they kept pushing her back, and thye chose the Japan market mainly because they figure thats where they could make money on her since she had a top10 hit their earlier in the year.

But i love how labels spin shit, and claim MYA spent "their" money on promotion. But this is good for Amerie and MYA, mainly because they are leaning indie anyway. Amerie had already leaked her album on Mix cds for the last 2 years and inspired people like Teedra Moses to the same, and now Mya is following suit by letting the tracks loose on her Myspace site.

Dinosaurs that refuse to look at their reflections.

Heres a little piece from a very recent interview with Amerie while in the UK.


What advice do you offer up-and-coming artists?
Look at that contract. Don’t get stuck for a long time because the record companies are trying to figure out what to do right now. It’s hard to sell an album because everyone’s buying ringtones and singles. If the labels are cutting back on the things you’re trying to do, what’s the point of signing to a big label? There has to be an incentive to sign, that’s what people have to look at now. When you put that signature down, what are the label doing? What are you getting? Make sure you sign to a label that’s really going to push you, that will work on sticking with you. It’s about cultivating that relationship with the audience, and giving you more than one or two videos.

How has your label treated you?
Er, you probably don’t even want to ask me that right now. That’s how I feel abut it. I personally love some of the people that work here in the UK; my publicist Shoshanna and Simon... but I really don’t want to talk about it cos I want to keep it all positive, you feel me?

Well, it seems the album didn’t really perform as well as it should have?
Cos they’re not pushing it like they should.

Why aren’t they?
We want to release Crush, but they feel there’s a lot going on. This is my thing; I’m an artist and this is not rocket science. Take Control was going good, so we knew we had to schedule the video for Gotta Work. But you need money to do a video, and by the time we got it cleared, it was late. They didn’t feel like that, but anybody with half a brain could see it was late. So then Gotta Work was going up, but it peaked and rapidly started coming down, so we knew we needed to do Crush. They said ‘Wait.’ I love the business and I studied the business and I told them we needed to do the other video, because you need to have another single when your other track is peaking. They’re talking about doing it next year, but I’m not doing it next year! So I don’t know what to tell you. I get that everyone’s filled with good intentions, but the road to perdition is filled with good intentions. There should have been no gaps.


Ok, lets move on. Is it true your legs are insured for $2million?
(Laughs) It’s not true, but it’s not a bad idea. Although I would insure everything, not just my legs!