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JoJo has spoken about the support she received from Taylor Swift during the protracted legal battle she had with her former record label several years ago.
The ‘Leave (Get Out)’ singer initially sued her former label Blackground Records and its imprint Da Family Records over a dispute about her recording contract in 2009. JoJo was finally released from the contract in late 2013 after a settlement was finally agreed following another lawsuit, marking the end of a four-year spell in which the singer had been unable to release new music and her back catalogue was unavailable to stream or purchase.
JoJo, who has just released her latest solo album ‘Good To Know’, rerecorded her masters and re-released her first two albums in 2018 after starting her own company Clove Music to help “change the narrative”.
“I released these new masters of my first two albums because I was tired of seeing people being like, ‘Why did you take your albums down from Spotify?’ They were never there,” she said in a new interview with People. “I would never do that. Why would I be a weirdo and want to erase my history? That makes no sense. I like money; I like people to be able to go back and have access to my songs whenever they want.”
JoJo also spoke in the interview about the support she received from Swift during the legal battle with her former record company.
“A few years ago, Taylor had me over her house, actually. She was just like, ‘I can’t believe everything you’re going through. This is so fucked up, so wrong, blah, blah, blah.’
“And of course, she couldn’t have ever known that she would go through something similar where her catalogue was bought from her.”
JoJo was referring to Swift’s intention to re-record her original masters following Scooter Braun’s controversial purchase last year of her former label Big Machine Records, and with it the masters of Swift’s first six albums.
“But our situations were actually quite different,” JoJo continued about Swift’s predicament. “I was literally being completely silenced. Taylor is in a different position in her career. I was really sidelined, and it was pretty hurtful. I don’t think that her career is suffering because of whatever happened. They’re still available on streaming services; that’s the difference.
“I’m on the side of these women. But, at the end of the day, the situation between her and Scooter is vastly different than what I was going through with Blackground. To be honest, I don’t have any problem with Scooter Braun. I think he’s a really smart man — but it does suck to feel like you are not in control of your own shit.”
Last month, Swift claimed that Big Machine were intending to release an unapproved live album of her material which dated back to 2008.
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