Lauryn Hill has announced her support for a bill that plans to limit the power label’s have over artists.
Hill has had plentiful runnings with labels throughout her career, and this is largely why she’s never released the follow up to her 1998 debut, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
She is now supporting the Californian bill, the FAIR Act, which plans to fight against an amendment to California’s ‘Seven-Year Statute’ that allows labels to sue artists for damages if they leave after seven years but before releasing the required number of albums.
“Artists can easily fall prey to the internal politics of business, someone inside simply not liking them, or bullying and intimidation and the attacks that come when someone resists that coercion,” Hill explained.
“Music is a most powerful medium. Often people want to influence the influencers and will top at nothing less than treachery to accomplish their goal. Greed often perverts the creative intentions of young dreamers who don’t realize they’re up against a system with a history of using and crushing people who don’t comply with their agenda.”
“No institution should be allowed the opportunity to control the market by controlling the output of a creative being for some ridiculous, indefinite period of time,” Hill continued.
“This is not only unjust, it’s dangerous, and at its core a violation of the principles of free expression. Artists’ expressions are their voices, and an extension of their free speech and should not be contained, caught-up or controlled beyond a reasonable amount of time by an institution with the money and power to obstruct and deny someone’s output indefinitely.”
A hearing is scheduled on April 19th, and the Arts Committee will vote on the bill before it goes to the assembly floor and state senate.