Kesha has launched a new community platform for creators.
The 38-year-old music star revealed her reasons for creating the platform Smash is to save others from signing “predatory deals” like she did at the age of 18.
She said: “My goal is to shift the power structure of the music making business [towards] creators. I signed a predatory deal when I was 18 and then spent more than a decade fighting to regain rights to my voice and image. When I finally gained my freedom I knew the fight wasn’t over. I want to make sure what happened to me never happens to anyone else again.”
Smash will allow creators to connect, collaborate and retain rights to whatever they create.
Kesha – who will act as CEO – created the platform with CTO Alan Cannistraro, COO Lagan Sebert and a team of music industry and tech veterans.
Its core mission aims to give creators access to the professional community they need to make music without the need to fight for ownership over what they create.
Speaking to Wired about the project, Kesha said: “Honestly, it makes my entire life make sense for me. After what I’ve gone through and seeing the things that I’ve seen, seeing that the system is really broken. It’s gatekeeping by people that can do what they want.
“There are gatekeepers, and they control access to other collaborators, other musicians, the community. And artists end up signing things without really having a ton of knowledge behind what they’re signing. At least, that’s happened to me. You can look through history and I’m definitely not the only one. That was really inspiring for me to start Smash. I want a place where artists and music makers of any kind can have community, they can collaborate, they can hire each other and retain all the rights to everything they create. There’s no gatekeeping of contacts.
“Think LinkedIn for music creators with a Fiverr-style marketplace where you can offer your services or hire each other.”