Prince Quotes

Record contracts are just like - I'm gonna say the word - slavery. I would tell any young artist... don't sign.

The intentions of record companies are not good, from the musician's perspective.

When I was in N.W.A. and didn't get paid all the money I was owed, that's when the business side of showbiz hit me.

Commitments are one of the worst things to have in the music business. They're very annoying.

I feel Motown really exploited me.

One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it?'

I sold my life to Capitol Records; it sucks.

Everything about the music industry takes away from you as an artist. They're always wondering what the next thing is: 'What do you have?' It's a very introverted process.

We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.

With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor ... Each of the things is, by the respective party, called by two different and incompatible names—liberty and tyranny.

The Negro race is so averse to labor that without force we have hardly anywhere been able to obtain it.

I'm just saying the producers and people who work on music are getting left out - that's when it starts getting criminal. It's like you're working hard, and you're not receiving. In any other business, people would be standing before Congress. They have antitrust laws against this kind of behavior.

One of the reasons - I stopped doing films for about a year and a half because I felt that I was being somewhat used by producers that were trying to get their movies made within a certain budget range and not take care of me.

In the hip-hop world, Eazy-E was the personification of evil. He paid my hospital bill, about $60,000, but he made me pay him back, which is cool, except that I later found out that he paid the bill out of my share of a publishing deal he made for me.

You can be more creative when you're not feeling like a slave. When you're on a record label, they have you like that.

I know so many girls that have felt like they've been taken advantage of. Not only in the music business, but in every single career out there.

I think that once an artist has proven herself and you sell lots of records, you should be compensated.

The record companies really do conspire against the artists. Especially the black artists

I did a lot of songs that I sold, but then they never came out and I never got paid for it. You learn real fast that the music industry, in the beginning, you're not going to get paid for a while, and then you start getting the accolades.

The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another's labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live.

Who wanna be next? While you a dead superstar, the record company still cashin' checks.

It surprises people that there's actually a very large number of slaves in the world today-our best estimate is 27 million. And that is defining a slave in a very narrow way; we're not talking about sweatshop workers or people who are just poor, we're talking about people who are controlled by violence, who cannot walk away, who are being held against their will, who are being paid nothing.

I think now the music is good. I tell people all the time who like to be in the music business you got to have a hit record.

Slavery is the most insane thing... I don't know that we've ever seen in history, but it's got to be close. The idea of slavery is such a base impulse. It's like, "I'm going to kidnap you and then you're going to do everything I want." Like, what? And then there's the historical aspect. It had a huge effect on human history.

Sex, drugs, money, power etc. Just because you get to choose your master doesn't mean you aren't a slave.