Own your masters. Own your masters. Own your masters. That's what every artist wants in the end, right? Control, control and control. I loved the anecdote in this VULTURE profile of I MAY DESTROY YOU creator/writer/star MICHAELA COEL about how NETFLIX offered her $1 million upfront for the series three years ago and Coel, who had yet to turn 30, walked away because she wouldn't get to keep any piece of the copyright. And then she fired CAA, which tried to persuade her to take the deal. The real money is in that copyright. In the masters. (P.S. Watch the show, which wound up at BBC and HBO, with Coel in complete control.) I thought of that story when I read about UNITEDMASTERS' newest pitch to artists: either let the digital distribution and tools company take a 10 percent cut of your royalties, or pay a $5 monthly fee and keep all the royalties to yourself. "We want to give artists alternative ways of getting distributed without signing their rights away," UnitedMasters founder STEVE STOUTE tells BLOOMBERG. If you're an artist and your monthly revenue from streaming music services is $50 or more, that seems like an easy choice to make. (If it isn't, then you're a citizen of music's long tail, which is cool, too; the company says it has distributed songs for half a million artists and it's a safe bet the vast majority of them reside within that tail.) There are additional benefits for artists who pay the monthly fee, including the chance to have their music considered by ESPN, but Stoute's primary selling point seems to be retaining ownership and all your royalties. He isn't alone in that philosophy. Earlier this year, Los Angeles startup STEM began offering artists—and indie labels—revolving credit lines without asking for any ownership stake in the work the money is funding. "We want to completely change the way artists can access capital," CEO MILANA RABKIN LEWIS explained in February. And here's a ROLLING STONE feature on MARSHMELLO and his manager, MOE SHALIZI, who have built a mini-empire without label help. Instead of a record deal, the artist has a management company staffed with seasoned label executives: "major-label consulting without the restrictions," as writer SAMANTHA HISSONG puts it. That's three different visions of a future a lot of artists have been talking about for years: not necessarily a future without labels—all those companies are doing the work of a label to varying degrees—but one with the label no longer in, as the CLASH once put it, you know... LIL NAS X is among the 2,300 people who got invitations to join the RECORDING ACADEMY, which has loosened its membership rules and increased its outreach (that's 1,000 more invitations than went out last year) in an effort to increase diversity, lower the membership's average age and, in the words of interim CEO HARVEY MASON JR., "be representative of the people making music." Just under half of the invites were sent to women, 21 percent went to African Americans and 8 percent went to people who identify as Hispanic—all groups that are underrepresented within the current membership, and—hang on a sec while I do some math—will continue to be underrepresented if the outreach continues at this politely slow pace. Could the Academy maybe speed things up in coming years? Send 75 percent of next year's invites to women. Send 75 percent to African Americans. Etc. Opening the window a crack is nice. Opening the door all the way would be better... The original LADY A opens up about her battle with the new LADY A and the tangible effects of name appropriation. She's still relatively easy to find on the web, but her songs have become harder to search for on streaming services. And there's this: "I attempted to upload my single [on DISTROKID] and couldn’t verify my name, Lady A, for several days. It finally went through and now I’m just waiting until my July release to see if my single will be buried." She really did want the $10 million she asked for, and says she would have given half to charity... I very much believe there's a future in virtual live shows. I also very much believe this isn't it... Hearts and hugs to our friend MATT PINFIELD... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from the late JUICE WRLD, MARGO PRICE, JULIANNA BARWICK, 100 GECS (remix album), DINNER PARTY (supergroup of TERRACE MARTIN, KAMASI WASHINGTON, ROBERT GLASPER & 9TH WONDER), REDMAN MEHLDAU MCBRIDE BLADE, SUMMER WALKER, JIMMIE ALLEN, BRETT ELDREDGE, IRENE & SEULGI, SAHBABII (released earlier in the week), UNOTHEACTIVIST, GALCHER LUSTWERK, the STREETS, MY MORNING JACKET, RUFUS WAINWRIGHT, RAY WYLIE HUBBARD, SHARPTOOTH, LANTERN, STATIC-X (featuring vocals by the late WAYNE STATIC), ASEITAS, the RESIDENTS, INTER ARMA, NZCA LINES, DMA'S, the BETHS, DONNA MISSAL, the MIDNIGHT, MIKE SHINODA, SHAGGY, AVANT, the JAYHAWKS, ERIC HUTCHINSON, TJO (TARA JANE O'NEIL), SAM PREKOP, PAINT, GERALD CLAYTON, DERRICK GARDNER & THE BIG DIG! BAND and ICE.