Kim Petras Requests To Be Dropped By Her Label, Kesha Responds

Pop stars are complaining about their labels again. A few months ago Halsey said in an interview that Columbia wasn't allowing her to make a new record due to her last LP underperforming. Now, Kim Petras has been making tweets requesting to be dropped from Republic.

"My album has been done for 6 months but my record label has refused to give me a release date or pay my collaborator’s for the work they’ve done," the singer tweeted tonight. Shortly after, she added, "Oh ya I also filmed and self funded a music video over 2 months ago for my next single that they also wouldn’t give me a release date for."

"I’m tired of having no control over my own life or career. I want to continue to self fund and self curate my own music. This is why I have formally requested to be dropped by @RepublicRecords," she continued.

"I won a grammy 2 years ago…….. the music is TEA. Still no support . If it’s not a tiktok trend or 80s revival queerbaiting shit these labels have no interest in supporting," she tweeted. She concluded with, "I’m dropping Detour regardless."

Petras' last album was 2023's Problématique, which came out a few months after her debut full-length Feed The Beast. In 2024 she shared the Slut Pop Miami EP. Throughout last year, she released the songs "Polo," "Freak It," and "I Like Ur Look," presumably singles from Detour.

Of course it's always hard to tell whether pop stars are being sincere or pulling a stunt. A few years ago Charli XCX complained about her label and then said she was "lying for fun."

Slut Pop Miami was released through Republic and Amigo Records, Dr. Luke's record label. Controversially, Petras continued to work with the producer after Kesha sued the producer for sexual abuse and sought to be released from her contract in 2014; he denied the claims and countersued, and they settled in 2023. But Kesha has responded to Petras' tweets with a message of support:

I spent many years fighting for the rights to myself. Watching another woman realize that the 'golden cage' is still a cage isn’t a victory—it’s a tragedy we have to stop repeating. Freedom isn’t a privilege; it’s a birthright. I hear you, I’m sorry Kim.

Grimes had a lot to say too:

Like every artist I've ever met was in some point in a terrible label situation. The labels economic model is based on hits. U sign to a label because of the promise that if a song is going they can throw gasoline on it. No amount of advice seems to be able to convince enough artists to stop signing to labels cuz u rly do need to learn this first hand (even I did). But at this point it's almost like lobbying and super pacs in politics - it reduces the potential and rewards algorithmically safe music. They own huge chunks of like any distribution model - most of which are also algo based and reward sameness and frankly when I hear an artist I like followed by 40 other artists that sound just like them I start to lose interest. we've basically destroyed music journalism. And the abundance has actually sort of make everything feel less special. The main music that can succeed is by theatre kids since they have higher pain tolerance and even exuberant joy about performing and therefore can thrive in environments like tik tok. And it is importsnt to keep space for this type of music But man... I used to listen to so many local bands. There used to be a way more sustained amount of smaller artists. The musical middle class, as it were. This peaked during Napster era when we prob had the most meritocratic least gatekept music industry (you could be ugly too and still succeed. I miss that lol). Now literal VC's are buying catalogues - every economic incentive in the world has lined up to actively dissuade new music and especially innovative music. The artists I currently consider the pantheon of modern innovators would have been a LOT more successful ten years ago. It's interesting to me how undissected the economics of music are and how profoundly and negatively they are impacting music rn

Btw labels and publishers are now investing in AI and they can use your ip which they often own to literally recreate you. They just settled with udio who is now their tool, not the people's tool even though it was created with your work And btw fuck session culture while we're here. It breaks my heart watching geniuses make other people famous, sometimes barely getting paid - and then when they finally work up the courage everyone just thinks they sound like a copy of the people they personally put on. Everything abt this industry exploits and beats down the greats because ppl who are outlier genius at art tend to be hard to control, and fame avoidant cuz they're sensitive (correlation between artists drug deaths and this reality prob pretty clear). Even still I've had a friend who wrote a bit bullied into years of mental health crisis because the artists fans relentlessly bullied and stalked them. Whose gna protect them? Not the ppl getting paid off their work Very little effort is put into taking care of artists. We are expendable and sometimes I suspect they purposefully try to break the best ones so no one else can have them and they can steal their ideas and thrust them on to someone else whose dreams are so big they'll accept the abuse Like when every top 40 producer started sounding like Sophie and u never saw any Sophie credits on the hits ripping her