Sammy Rae Doesn’t Sugar-Coat Anything: The Not-So-Sweet Reality of Independent Artists
Samantha Rae Bowers led me into Dangerous, the largest of Flux Studios’ three recording spaces. She pointed to a comfortable two-seater couch before collapsing into its red velvet cushions. “I slept on this couch a few times,” she said, smiling. She motioned to the room around her. “This is where it all happened.”
After working tirelessly for the last two years, Bowers, a 22-year-old Connecticut native living in Brooklyn, recently released her debut album, Sugar, a jazzy, soulful body of work that she recorded at Flux Studios on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Bowers, who balanced writing, recording, producing and promoting the album with three part-time jobs, is an independent recording artist.
Being an independent artist is a huge gamble. Unlike artists signed to a record label, independent artists foot their own bills. This means that every part of an independently produced album you hear and see — down to the last trumpet horn — is paid for by the artist. And, unfortunately, making a profit isn’t necessarily a guarantee.
“There’s a reason it’s called the hustle,” she said. “And there’s a reason we’re called starving artists.”
