James Blake claims that he isn’t paid for 95% of his production work
In a new interview, Blake argued that “producers don’t get paid by the hour” despite spending countless hours making music
James Blake has claimed that he isn’t paid for 95% of the work that he produces in a new interview with Rolling Stone.
Speaking to the publication just ahead of the release of his seventh studio album ‘Trying Times’, which landed on Friday (March 13) Blake said out of the “10,000 hours” he spends mastering music, “I probably spent that just doing things that never came out”.
He said that he puts it down to “the way the industry is”, explaining: “As a producer, you’re just throwing paint, you’re throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks.”
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When asked about the amount of time he works on music, he claimed: “I’d say 99, not 99 – 95% of the work I’ve done was unpaid,” which he said is “nuts”.
“It’s not even a complaint,” he said. “Producers don’t get paid by the hour. You can spend a lot of hours on a piece of music, and then the direction of a record can change. And that can happen with me too. I can just wake up one day and just realise, ‘Oh shit, we’ve been going in the wrong direction.’ And then five to 10 songs just disappear.”
Blake also referred to his work with other artists, pointing to the amount of time he’s spent in the studio with collaborators on releases that never went on to be released.
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On his latest album ‘Trying Times’, Blake departed from Republic Records and opted to release on an independent label, LA-based Good Boy, for the first time.
James Blake has regularly spoken about unfair payment distribution within the music industry, previously claiming in 2024 that the monetisation of music on streaming services had led consumers to think that music is “free”.
He claimed at the time that he and Frank Ocean "never made a cent" from the viral success of their track 'Godspeed' on TikTok since it was listed as an “original sound” in most clips.
Read James Blake’s Rolling Stone interview here.
Gemma Ross is Mixmag’s Associate Digital Editor, follow her on X
