Originally Posted by
carlo
The sad truth is that the music industry at large has generally always put more value on artists who are male and white. Phyllis was fortunate to release the body of work that she has, but does it mean she received her proper dues as an artist? That would be up for debate, and in my opinion, no, she hasn't. Unless you're Aretha Franklin, the industry has been pretty dismissive of its black female artists. It's only in recent years that some have started to cut some fair deals, get equitable pay, obtain fair songwriting credits, etc. But years ago, forget it if you wanted a songwriting credit or wanted to contribute your own song to your own album. You were restricted to a very specific mold. I feel that at one point, the industry looked at Phyllis and said, "Well, we now already have our Anita Baker, Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson...there's no more room for you on the radio or on the charts. You sold decently but you failed to get a 'cross-over pop hit', so we are done with you." That is what happened with her at Arista. That kind of attitude doesn't apply to people like Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, Paul Simon... [[just insert an endless amount of white male artist names here). There's been some articles written on this subject in recent months, but even still, many black artists and executives are afraid to speak out. She didn't get a real chance to write her own songs until her last album, the release of which kept getting deferred. It was kept 'in the can' until after she passed away. At times, she was sadly not taken seriously as an artist.
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