Ciara’s networth so far has always been on point. In 2015, Wilson reportedly sold over 23 million records worldwide. However, what she owned weighed differently.
Traditionally, the music industry structures deals so that the label, not the artist, owns the masters of all songs created during that record deal.
Ciara perfectly explained the shackles major record labels hold over artists. “They hold the power to tell you when your next song can come out or your next album can come out and then if they’re not happy with it they decide they want to stop in the process.”
In exchange for signing over the master rights to their recordings, labels provide artists with advances and royalty percentages from all profits made off the music.
But since many artists contribute to their performance and pay for recordings, they also see fairness in ownership. However, most royalties begin coming to the artist after they’ve earned back their advances.
Not many artists own their masters. In fact, only a handful do. But the ones who do also paid for them. Some of the artists who own their masters include, Rihanna, Jay Z, Frank Ocean, Iggy Azalea, and Chance The Rapper.
However, most admit they paid for them. Taylor Swift battled over her masters. During the process she discovered her masters were sold to someone else for 330 million dollars.
Instead of buyer her masters Ciara decided to take a shot at just asking. The perfect example of knowing a closed mouth doesn’t get fed.
She said, “I had this song called Level Up. I had the video for the song as well I had a whole vision for my project. I sat down and I talked to the CEO at that time. It was like he made up his mind before I came into the room that he wasn’t checking for and in a matter of 24 hours the most frustrating thing happened and one of the biggest blessings in my life happened. I was like this is my chance. I’m gonna ask for my masters. I’m gonna go run my own label I’m gonna go do it my way and amazingly enough they gave me my masters. They gave them to me for free so it lets you know that they didn’t believe at all.”
Ciara’s networth including her music stands about 20 million dollars. In addition to her own music, she also owns her own record label, Beauty Marks Entertainment.
