After deleting a tweet Monday declaring that he would not release new music until he is released from his contracts with Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Universal, Kanye West on Tuesday shared a screenshot of what appeared to be a text message conversation with an unnamed advisor who proposed potential game plans and claimed West’s masters are worth more than Taylor Swift’s. 



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h5>



West, who has been open about his diagnosis as bipolar,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/9448889/kanye-west-not-releasing-music-sony-universal-contracts" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;he’s &#8220;not putting no more music out till I’m done with my contract with Sony and Universal.



&#8220;West demanded to see “everybody’s contracts” at Sony and Universal and said he would not “watch my people be enslaved” and would put his “life on the line” for them, comparing the music industry and the NBA to “modern day slave ships” and himself to Moses.&nbsp;



West&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/1305865222473777152/photo/1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;Tuesday that he had not heard from Universal or Sony and that it was “go time,” including the apparent conversation with his advisor who shared three possible strategies.&nbsp;



West’s advisor claimed they could argue that Universal and Sony breached their contract by not supporting West “fully,” noting “this is the lawsuit/termination nuclear option” and would mean they would litigate and ask for his masters as part of a settlement agreement.&nbsp;



West, who&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;this year estimated had become a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2020/04/24/kanye-west-is-now-officially-a-billionaireand-he-really-wants-the-world-to-know/">billionaire</a>, could buy his masters or re-record them, “but if Taylor’s cost $300 million yours would cost a lot more I assume,” the advisor said referring to Scooter Braun’s 2019 acquisition of the label Big Machine Records from Scott Borchetta.



West could also propose a Yeezy Media and Universal joint venture that is “equal and not one sided,” but West replied he is “not open to any form of business with Universal or Sony.”



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<h5 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h5>



Braun’s Ithaca Holdings last year bought Big Machine Records, which had owned the rights to the master recordings of Swift’s first six albums, reportedly for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/scooter-braun-makes-300-million-deal-for-big-machine-records-11561893008?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D33853874586699366404617219261671207054%7CMCAID%3D%7CMCORGID%3DCB68E4BA55144CAA0A4C98A5%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1600190992" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$300 million</a>.&nbsp;



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h5>



Swift, who signed with Big Machine Records in 2005 when she was 15 years old, said she learned about the label’s sale when everyone else did. In a Tumblr&nbsp;<a href="https://taylorswift.tumblr.com/post/185958366550/for-years-i-asked-pleaded-for-a-chance-to-own-my?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">post</a>, she said she had “pleaded” for a chance to own her work for years and knew it was likely that Borchetta would sell the label. She said she felt betrayed that he sold it to Braun, who she said bullied her for years, sometimes alongside West. She often alludes to it in her new album&nbsp;Folklore.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h5>



$1.3 billion. That’s West’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/kanye-west/#37b650d056f1">net worth</a>, according to&nbsp;Forbes. West owns 100% of his fashion brand Yeezy which pulled in an estimated<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/kanye-west/#3986273556f1">&nbsp;$1.3 billion</a>&nbsp;in sales in 2019.



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h5>



Watch to see if West moves forward with any of the deals reportedly proposed by his advisor or if he is busy focusing on his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elanagross/2020/09/08/kanye-west-now-on-ballot-in-12-states-after-qualifying-in-mississippi/#3a2aacf8712c">presidential campaign</a>. West had previously tweeted that he would release a new album&nbsp;Donda&nbsp;in July.



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h5>



<a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/9448889/kanye-west-not-releasing-music-sony-universal-contracts" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Kanye West Declares Himself ‘New Moses,’ Says He Won’t Release New Music Till Freed From Universal and Sony/ATV Deals</a>&nbsp;(Billboard) &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;



<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/scooter-braun-makes-300-million-deal-for-big-machine-records-11561893008?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D33853874586699366404617219261671207054%7CMCAID%3D%7CMCORGID%3DCB68E4BA55144CAA0A4C98A5%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1600190992" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Scooter Braun Makes $300 Million Deal for Big Machine Records&nbsp;</a>(Wall Street Journal)

2019 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival – Weekend 2 – Day 2

Kanye West Says He Won’t Release Music Until He’s Freed From Contracts, Claims His Masters Worth More Than Taylor Swift’s

Shonda Rhimes may have defined Thursday night television, but she&#8217;s now dictating the medium&#8217;s future. When the&nbsp;Grey&#8217;s Anatomy&nbsp;creator signed a nine figure, four-year deal with Netflix last year, she cemented her place&nbsp;at the forefront of entertainment&#8217;s digital future-and pioneered Netflix&#8217;s handsome producer paydays.
Rhimes, who created and executive produced ABC hits including&nbsp;Scandaland&nbsp;How To Get Away with Murder, is now developing eight shows for the streaming service through her production outfit ShondaLand.
&#8220;We are powerful women and when we say we have power, what we are really saying is that we deserve to have power. We deserve whatever good thing it is that we are getting,&#8221; said&nbsp;Rhimes at&nbsp;Elle&nbsp;magazine’s 25th annual Women in Hollywood celebration.
<blockquote>Demanding what you deserve can feel like a radical act.</blockquote>
Worth an estimated $135 million, Rhimes is the wealthiest female showrunner&#8211;the person who oversees writing and production of each TV episode-in&nbsp;Hollywood. She has said that her deal, which&nbsp;reportedly&nbsp;includes a base salary of $150 million with incentives that could bump it much higher, is bigger than the $300 million secured by Ryan Murphy.
Rhimes is just one of the world&#8217;s most powerful women in media and entertainment effecting change and impacting her industry with groundbreaking deals and inclusive storytelling. Take Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who has&nbsp;helped pioneer&nbsp;Star Wars&#8216; most inclusive casting yet.&nbsp;Under Kennedy&#8217;s stewardship, Kelly Marie Tran became the first woman of color to have a lead role in the multi-billion dollar franchise, playing Rose Tico in 2017&#8217;s&nbsp;The Last Jedi.
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Across the lot, Dana Walden has seen her power grow in the studio landscape. Following Disney&#8217;s $71.3 billion acquisition of the majority of&nbsp;21st Century Fox, the former chair and CEO of Fox Television Group will also head up 20th Century Fox TV, ABC Studios, the Freeform network, ABC-owned TV stations, ABC Entertainment and several other divisions.
Walden believes more women need to be in decision-making roles at every level. &#8220;There must be women in the highest ranks of every organization, and meaningful female representation on every corporate board,&#8221; Walden&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2017/11/01/15-most-powerful-women-in-entertainment-and-media-2017-effecting-change-tackling-sexual-harassment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="InternalLink:https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2017/11/01/15-most-powerful-women-in-entertainment-and-media-2017-effecting-change-tackling-sexual-harassment/">told Forbes last year</a>.
<blockquote>Our recruiting and our training has to be oriented to ensure that we’re identifying and nurturing future generations of female leaders.</blockquote>
Entertainment&#8217;s most powerful&nbsp;span Hollywood, music and publishing. As each segment continues to deal with the fallout of the #MeToo movement, women have taken action. Anna Wintour, who continues to control&nbsp;Vogue,&nbsp;suspended photographers Bruce Weber and Mario Testino amid sexual misconduct charges and set a code of conduct for models and photographers.
Wintour teamed up with music power woman Beyoncé for the September issue of&nbsp;Vogue; she was given creative control over her cover photo and leveraged that power to hire the first African American photographer to shoot the cover in the magazine&#8217;s&nbsp; 126-year history. Another first for Beyoncé: In 2018, she became the first black woman to headline Coachella.
Here&#8217;s the full list of Media and Entertainment power women:
1. Oprah Winfrey, Media mogul
2. Shari Redstone, Vice Chair, CBS &amp; Viacom
3. Bonnie Hammer, Chair, NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment
4. Donna Langley,&nbsp; Chair, Universal Pictures
5. Anna Wintour, Artistic Director, Conde Nast
6. Beyoncé, Singer
7. Dana Walden, Chairman, Disney TV Studios and ABC Entertainment
8. Katharine Viner, Editor-in-Chief, Guardian
9. Taylor Swift, Singer
10. Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief, The Economist
11. Kathleen Kennedy, President, Lucasfilm
12. Shonda Rhimes, Showrunner
13. Arianna Huffington, Founder &amp; CEO, Thrive Global
14. Serena Williams, Tennis player
15. Shobhana Bhartia, Chair, HT&nbsp;Media
16. Priyanka Chopra,&nbsp;Actress
&#8211;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Natalie Robehmed</a><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">:</a>&nbsp;I&#8217;m an associate editor at Forbes covering media and entertainment, with a focus on the movie business. For the magazine, I&#8217;ve written cover stories on&nbsp;
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Tag: Taylor Swift

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Kanye West Says He Won’t Release Music Until He’s Freed From Contracts, Claims His Masters Worth More Than Taylor Swift’s

From Beyonce To Shonda Rhimes, The Most Powerful Women In Entertainment 2018