What exactly is the deal with artist and their record company? Is being an artist really a world of riches? Is it world of highlights and excitement? Or is the artist really just a slave to the music industry? What exactly do they have to look forward to?

                          Artists are given advances by their record company. Their advances are given to promote their album, producers, video shoots, etc. These advances are given before the record is released, the artist are then to repay the money borrowed from the record company for advances.

                         In many cases the artist and their producers don’t always get paid, however the record company always gets paid. In one example, after an artist sold 4,000,000 records they can still remain in debt to their records for more than $1.5 million dollars. While the record company takes in 8,802,000.00 There are many things that a potential artist needs to look out for such as the label that they are signed to and the contract they signed.

                        There are artists who were blessed  by being in the industry then there are those who were burned. Grammy award winners, trio TLC  filed for bankruptcy after a long fight with their record label Laface Records . TLC had many financial problems, many were personal, and many were because they weren't receiving the correct amount of proceeds from records sold. The trio went through their period of bankruptcy and revived themselves with their follow up album Fan Mail which raced to the top of the charts. Songstress Toni Braxton was another artist who filed for bankruptcy after fighting with the management of Laface Records. Braxton filed for bankruptcy after receiving only 39 cents for every record sold.