Kesha could have taken the dollar sign out of her identify, however now, the singer is considering cash once more — not for herself, however to fund the seed spherical of her new startup, Smash.
In line with Kesha’s Instagram post, Smash will likely be a “community-based platform to attach and defend music creators,” which aligns with the mission of her new eponymous record label, which she introduced final yr.
The 38-year-old chart-topper has at all times been greater than a glitter-clad occasion woman singing about brushing her teeth with Jack Daniel’s. Beneath her infectious 2010s pop music is a darker story — one by which she felt stripped of her power, each as an artist and an individual, by a predatory record deal that she signed when she was a youngster.
After a traumatic public legal battle along with her producer, Kesha now says that she is a “free woman,” and she or he’s making new music. Each her label, Kesha Data, and the app Smash search to assist others make music with out compromising their inventive rights.
“I need a spot the place artists and music makers of any variety can have neighborhood, they’ll collaborate, they’ll rent one another and retain all of the rights to every thing they create,” Kesha said in an interview with WIRED. “There’s no gatekeeping of contacts.”
She went on to explain the app as “LinkedIn for music creators,” or a “Fiverr-style market.” The distinction is that Smash plans to prioritize artists’ rights at each stage.
Kesha’s CTO on the undertaking is Alan Cannistraro. He spent 12 years at Apple constructing a number of the first iOS apps, then labored at Fb, the place he constructed the Yr-In-Evaluate characteristic. He left to start out a social video platform known as Rheo, which TechCrunch lined in 2016.