The beef between Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun has been one of the most-discussed music feuds of the past few years, and people in the industry have shared their thoughts on it. Now, so too has Pharrell, and it seems like he sees both Swift and Braun’s perspectives of the situation.
In a recent Variety interview, Pharrell gave a diplomatic response when asked about Swift and Braun, acknowledging both of their vantage points while placing blame on the music industry at large:
“It’s really unfortunate, you know. There was room for him to make his acquisition because that’s just the way the business is, and I felt for her and not being able to be in control of it. There’s a system in place that’s just all wrong. He’s a businessman and he also represents artists, so from his point of view he’s just making an acquisition of something that he felt would be a good investment. But the artist should have the opportunity [to retain ownership], and I don’t know whether she did or she didn’t. I just know that the system is wired in ways that is oftentimes not always fair to the creator. I think it should be the norm that the creators retain their rights.”
He also spoke about acquiring ownership over his own master recordings, saying, “It was a huge milestone, but it shouldn’t be, and we shouldn’t be celebrating that because I shouldn’t be one of… let’s call it dozens of people who own their original recordings. A master recording is the original and every other copy is the slave. We got them to take that out of their language in all the contracts for the Sony companies. It’s all over the place — you know, master bedroom — so there’s a lot of language that we need to change.”
Read the full interview here.