Ice Cube Quotes

I'd never been paid for the first Roses LP - it was 2002 before we received any royalties.

Well I know I was contracted to Polydor so they couldn't use my name.

There's definitely some sort of dissent brewing between labels, publishing companies and artists. A lot of it has to do with older licensing schemes.

When a record co. finds a guy now, they want to own everything. They want to own the rights to market that person's particular name. They want a piece of the action all the way through.

I've signed with major labels, and I haven't had any control over the money.

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.

Every musician in the known universe has signed a bad piece of paper, myself included. But it's really very simple. You're the artist. It's your picture that's going on the CD cover, nobody else's. Protect yourself. Get a good lawyer. You'll kick yourself later if you don't.

The purpose of VEVO is to continue the tradition of corporations preventing artists from making money on their art.

It happens in this business - The Rolling Stones were ripped off, so were the Beatles. George Harrison hardly had anything left in the end.

If somebody makes a record, no matter how many years later it's released, they or their families should be entitled to the proceeds.

I'll go to the movies and hear 'Angel From Montgomery' in some film, and nobody ever even told me about it. They don't tell you your stuff is going to be in a movie. They don't have to, so they don't tell you. You get paid eventually.

I can do anything onstage. Here's the misconception: You could record an album called 'The Best of Styx.' And all you would have to do is pay the individual songwriters a mechanical royalty.

Once you're signed to a label you compromise.

When people who are songwriters say 'That's my property and if you give it away for free then I'll lose my incentive,' then, well, good riddance.

I made an enormous amount of money in the record business as a result of owning so much of what I was doing... I owned all those albums and continued to own my catalog.

There's this thing called compulsory licensing law that allows artists through the record companies to take your music at will without your permission.

I'm the only girl songwriter that fights for a lot of things. I fight for songwriting fees, which record labels want you to shut up about.

To set the record straight for the God knows millionth time, we certainly didn't sign to Atlantic just for the money.

We'll look at a bunch of deals that are being offered to us, and we decide where to go and continue on I guess. It's not too early to start considering our options with other labels.

The music is fun and all that, but first and foremost it is a business, it's about money.

So you have to just be really careful and make sure that when a deal comes along, that it's like the right deal for you... not necessarily the most money, because you have to pay the record label that back in like record sales and stuff.

You get royalties from certain songs that you do when you do background. It's according to the work that you put in.

I feel Motown really exploited me.

I'm singing the music publisher's theme song - it ain't a commercial.

I've been doing this for seven and a half years. I've been just bustin' it, trying to break in as an artist in this business. For me, it's still just about the work. I get the scripts and I'm all about that. I don't really even have an idea what that's going to be like.