I usually give Taylor Swift a lot and refer to her as the “professional victim,” however this situation here is a bit messed up.
Taylor Swift is being honored at the 2019 American Music Awards with their ‘artist of the decade’ award, while many were expecting to see Swift pull out a medley of her hits for the occasion, apparently that just may not happen.
As the singer explained via social media on Thursday, Scooter Braun — who purchased the master recordings of Swift’s pre-Lover songs in June — and Scott Borchetta, the founder of Swift’s former record label, are forbidding her from performing her older material as part of her Artist of the Decade medley.
Swift has previously announced that she plans to re-record her entire library in 2020, which is when she’s legally allowed to do so. Braun and Borchetta believe that a performance of Swift’s older hits at the AMAs would technically count as her re-recording those songs early, and they aren’t having it.
“Scott Borchetta told my team that they’ll allow me to use my music only if I do these things: If I agree to not re-record copycat versions of my songs next year (which is something I’m both legally allowed to do and looking forward to) and also told my team that I need to stop talking about him and Scooter Braun,” Swift wrote. “The message being sent to me is very clear. Basically, be a good little girl and shut up. Or you’ll be punished.”
Swift also revealed that she filmed an upcoming documentary for Netflix, one that’s being plagued with problems of its own. “Scott and Scooter have declined the use of my older music or performance footage for the project, even though there is no mention of either of them or Big Machine Records anywhere in the film,” she explained.
Swift’s entire statement can be read in the tweet below:
Don’t know what else to do pic.twitter.com/1uBrXwviTS
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 14, 2019
