Def Jam Executive President No I.D. On Music Biz Woes — “The Tech Companies Are Taking the Money.”

In the old days, artists blamed record labels for everything.

They’re robbing me. They’re not promoting me. They’re making me change my sound.

But when technology put recording studios inside everyone’s laptops, and social media gave acts opportunities to speak to their audiences directly, the labels — particularly major ones— found their power greatly diminished.

Now, according to Def Jam Records President Dion “No I.D.” Wilson, there is a new enemy to do battle with.

Silicon Valley.

“Everybody always talks about what major labels try to do,” he tells Complex. “It’s not about major labels, these tech companies are the ones that control everything right now. Major labels aren’t taking people’s money anymore, the tech companies are taking the money.”

To hear Wilson tell it, major record labels as they exist today are fighting an uphill battle. New artists have grown up in a world where they can upload their music to the internet in a second, talk to their fans in a minute, and book a gig in an hour. Why get in bed with a label when you can just be the label?

Which is certainly a good question to ask, and partly the reason why there is still a resistance for artists to align to certain record labels. Historically, record labels just fuck everything up.

But because the traditional record business has been in such longstanding decline, and so much of the fluff surrounding it has been removed, that’s actually an upside. If you’re in music now, you’re either insane or you just really love it.

That’s what Wilson is selling. He still sees power in what labels can offer.

“Most of these major labels started as independents,” says Wilson. “When you talking about Atlantic, Def Jam, Island, these are companies that were started by visionary independents and then corporations purchased them. What are you supposed to do? Run away from really good brands, systems, and tools to start over because what? I don’t get the fight. It’s like fighting to stay out of a mansion, just to prove that you can build a treehouse. Yeah, you built it. So what? It’s not big enough. You’re supposed to take this bigger, imperfect situation and rehab it.”

A world without labels, according to Wilson, may be a world where we don’t have any big stars. Maybe we’ll just have small stars, artists who are briefly famous due to viral success, and ones who only speak to niche audiences.

“Otherwise, all of the great artists are going to be independent and they won’t be on the Grammy’s stage, the AMA’s stage, the VMA’s stage,” he says. “Kids are going to grow up misunderstanding what music can be. This is a real fight for the minds of kids who follow music as if it were a religion.”