Music executive Ubi Franklin has raised eyebrows after sharing his reason for including a no-pregnancy clause in contracts with female artists.
In a recent interview on the Culture Sonic Podcast, Franklin explained that the substantial financial investment required to develop an artist’s career can be jeopardized if the artist becomes pregnant during the development phase.
According to Franklin, pregnancy at this critical stage can slow down an artist’s progress and ultimately affect the financial returns on investment. This however, has led him to include the no-pregnancy clause in contracts to protect his investments and ensure the artist’s career growth is not disrupted.
He said, “So just imagine that you have an artiste who you are investing in as a woman and she gets pregnant., that’s over. Ir will take a lot for the artistes to come back. Tell me any, any female artistes in our industry who has had a baby, who had not built a proper career and then went to have a baby and came back. I’m not saying they cannot have children, but the thing is, while you have it, build a strong career. Just imagine that you invest money in a female artiste, you’re pushing the artiste, you’re pushing to a certain level.
“If I’m signing a female artiste, I always put it on a contract that for the duration of a contract, you will not get pregnant. If you’re watching me, this is a freaking business we should stop making it look like because you see artistes playing and everything on social media you can interact with artistes this is a freaking business. Right now to break an artiste, with 150 million, you’ve not even started. Sometimes you can spend 300 million on an artiste and get nothing as profit.”