Many are aware of the restraints that come with record labels. Any young and sparkly artist may think their dream is coming true if a label expresses interest in signing them but sometimes a label may have a hidden agenda for how they want to introduce any given act to the world. Sometimes, it can mean completely changing the artist's original ways and the latter is what happened to Lou The Human and he's recently spoken out.
In a series of screenshots of notes Lou penned on his iPhone, he began by explaining how he thought his dream came true with Interscope signed him when he just had two songs out. “I was sold a dream, told I’d be the biggest artist in the world, told to wait my turn, and I played along,” he wrote.
Things quickly changed when Lou was asked to do things that "didn’t align" with his values. "They asked me to piss on a black baby in a music video in an attempt to go ‘viral’ … I started to feel like I wasn’t in charge of myself or what ‘lou the human’ represented anymore. I didn’t complain though I just exercised my right to say ‘no’ more, which left me with the reputation of ‘being difficult and dysfunctional,'” he added.
After continuing to put his foot down and steer away from the “Eminem-style” cover art the label kept presenting him with, he noticed a change as managers no longer contacted him and "pr work, press [and] simple things" were no longer available to him. "To be honest I have no fucking idea what a label does at this point. All I’ve gotten was ignored, maybe one photoshoot where my idea was slaughtered anyway lol, can barely get video budgets or another budget to start my album, I literally can’t even get anyone on the phone lol.”
Lou's last project, Painkiller Paradise, was self-funded and he announced that he would be retiring his stage name and this project will be his last.
Read Lou's full statement below.