The music business isn't just flawed.
It's systematically designed to exploit the very people it claims to serve.
Right now, there's a talented artist somewhere uploading their fifteenth TikTok video today, desperately hoping this one might go viral.
They've been told that without the numbers - followers, streams, superficial metrics - they're worthless.
Meanwhile, major record labels have abandoned frontline artist development entirely, obsessing over their back catalogs instead.
You have to have numbers.
You have to have followers.
You have to have streams.
Vanity metrics have become the currency of success, dictating an artist's value based on superficial measures rather than true talent.
But here's what they don't tell you.
The major label model is designed so that one successful artist pays for all those who don't make it.
The ratio?
One winner out of every 30 artists they sign.
Twenty-nine talented, creative human beings are systematically set up to fail so that one can maybe succeed.
And even that "successful" artist rarely sees real royalties because they're paying for everyone else's "failure."
It gets worse.
The entire industry is deliberately fragmented to benefit lawyers and middlemen, not artists.
Your recording rights are controlled by one company, publishing by another, live performance by another, merchandise by someone else entirely.
Each party has their own agenda, their own narrow focus, their own slice of your potential income.
How can an artist possibly maximize their revenue when so many parties are involved in decision-making?
The answer is simple: they can't.
This fragmentation isn't an accident - it's by design.
Lawyers charge multiple fees by negotiating each part separately.
Managers extract more money when rights are separated.
They claim it's "for the artist's benefit," but I've seen the truth from the inside.
It's complete nonsense.
The talent management model has evolved to fit this broken system.
Managers work on percentage-based commissions with little security, incentivized to secure the biggest advance possible because future royalties are essentially zero.
Most managers work with multiple artists expecting maybe one will succeed, then abandon the rest.
Sound familiar?
It's the same broken model, replicated at every level.
The result?
A music industry that chews up and spits out creative talent, prioritizing profit over people.
Where artists compromise their vision to chase algorithmic approval.
Where creativity is secondary to clickability.
But here's what I realized after proving a completely different approach works.
The system isn't broken by accident - it's broken by design.
When artists are desperate and fragmented, they're easier to control.
When they're focused on vanity metrics instead of meaningful impact, they're distracted from building real power.
This is exactly why I have dedicated the last 7 years towards finding a way to build the biggest and fairest music company in the world.
It’s time for artists to ‘Escape The Machine’.
I've spent years developing something that doesn't just challenge this system - it completely replaces it.
A system where artists thrive while maintaining complete creative control.
A system that measures people metrics instead of vanity metrics.
A system that develops artists as complete human beings, not just content creators.
The establishment was so threatened they orchestrated a coordinated takedown to stop it spreading.
But that only proved how powerful this approach really is.
Now I'm ready to scale it globally.
Not just for one band, but for thousands of artists who are tired of being ground up by this machine.
Artists who understand their platform comes with responsibility.
Artists who want to create art that actually solves the world's problems.
If you're reading this thinking "finally, someone who gets it" - then you're exactly who this is for.
Whether you're an artist sick of playing the vanity metrics game, a creative entrepreneur who knows there's a better way, or someone who believes in the power of art to change the world.
It's time to stop feeding the machine designed to exploit you.
It's time to join the movement designed to empower you.
It's time to ‘Escape The Machine’.
Join me on September 10th where I’ll be revealing how we are going to not only build the biggest and fairest music company in the world, but also how we are going to create a brand new music industry.
Here is the link to register:
Because the time to do it is now.
Kind Regards
-The Baker
Solving The World's Problems Through Art | #thetimetodoisnow