According to nme.com, James Blake has spoken out about the challenges musicians face while getting paid fairly for their work on the social media platform TikTok. The musician posted several comments on his X/Twitter account on March 3, where he took the time to express his thoughts on the current financial state of the music industry and what he perceives as the unreasonable obstacles musicians may face in the future.

Blake first responded to a post quoting him speaking about not making any money on a recent viral TikTok hit: “It’s worth noting this is just an example I used in a post talking about the wider effect of TikTok on music, Just seeing this part makes it seem navel gazing but I’m speaking on a thing that’s affecting artists all over the world.”

Something I keep seeing is ‘if you’re lucky enough to go viral, just use the exposure to generate income some other way’. Musicians should be able to generate income via their music.

Do you want good music or do you want what you paid for?

— James Blake (@jamesblake) March 3, 2024

Blake adds with: “Something I keep seeing is ‘if you’re lucky enough to go viral, just use the exposure to generate income some other way. Musicians should be able to generate income via their music. Do you want good music or do you want what you paid for?”

If we want quality music somebody is gonna have to pay for it. Streaming services don’t pay properly, labels want a bigger cut than ever and just sit and wait for you to go viral, TikTok doesn’t pay properly, and touring is getting prohibitively expensive for most artists.

— James Blake (@jamesblake) March 3, 2024

The artist continues with: “If we want quality music somebody is gonna have to pay for it. Streaming services don’t pay properly, labels want a bigger cut than ever and just sit and wait for you to go viral, TikTok doesn’t pay properly, and touring is getting prohibitively expensive for most artists. The brainwashing worked and now people think music is free.”

And by the way, since it’s cheaper to produce fast, synthetic music to drop on streaming every week to capitalize on the strengths of the model, watch how the model is preparing you for AI generated music that pays musicians nothing at all.

— James Blake (@jamesblake) March 3, 2024

Blake concludes with: “Since it’s cheaper to produce fast, synthetic music to drop on streaming every week to capitalize on the strengths of the model, watch how the model is preparing you for AI generated music that pays musicians nothing at all. Anyway love you guys for caring about artists and I’ve loved seeing your thoughtful responses.”

Anyway love you guys for caring about artists and I’ve loved seeing your thoughtful responses. ❤️

— James Blake (@jamesblake) March 3, 2024

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat