#Cousins;
The 2000’s boy band B5 recently celebrated their 15 year anniversary of their self titled album. While celebrating their career and timeless hit single and cover of Jackson 5’s “ All I Do “ paired with their contribution to Disney’s High school musical film soundtrack a member of the group revealed that after all of the time that has passed they were never compensated!
B5’s youngest member #BryanBreeding took to his personal Instagram page earlier this week to state, “15 YEAR ANNIVERSARY. 15 years from today my life was changed forever. Releasing our first commercial self titled album “B5” on July 19th 2005. Looking back at it now is full of bitter sweet memories. Sharing my life with my 4 older brothers and cousin (Carnell) music was my pride, joy and passion. Only short lived though, after being exposed to the deep levels of politics and agendas quickly helped me realized that the music business is less about music and more about the “business”.
He goes on to say, “Which was fine to overlook (at the age of 12) and stay focused on my craft, trying to protect my innocence for the love of music. BUT This is usually the beginning of exploits for snakes to come into the picture cleverly hiding behind contracts only in favor of the one(s) creating it.”
Bryan continues to state that none of the members were ever paid for their commercial albums and only made money from their live performances.
“We made about 99.9% of all our income from live performances & merchandise and till this day I’ve never seen a PENNY from any of our B5 commercial albums. For years! We reach out to lawyers, advisors and even TV networks for a chance to help us or tell our story and no one ever touched it with a 10 foot pole. So here I AM! telling my story, my truth and not from a “woe is me” perspective but as an example for the next generation of young artists to WRITE and OWN your content! READ your contracts and create new sounds for the LOVE of music, as a expression of who YOU ARE! You dont need to compromise for the bag or the glamorized “Record Label Deal” we have enough artist like that and doing a great job at it. What I dream to see in the NOW-future is a world full of new beautiful music from authentic souls!”
For the past few decades numerous Bad Boy records artist have come forward to state that they were either poorly paid or never paid at all. Legendary acts such 112, Mase, Q Parker and more have publicly stated that they never received anything from their publishing.