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15 November 2019CopyrightSaman Javed

Taylor Swift says Scooter Braun is blocking her from performing her own music

Taylor Swift says music manager Scooter Braun is “exercising tyrannical control” over her music by stopping her from performing her old songs at the upcoming American Music Awards.

In a statement posted to Twitter yesterday, November 14, Swift announced that she is due to receive the Artist of the Decade Award at the ceremony, where she was planning to perform a medley of her hits from the last decade.

But her former manager Scott Borchetta and Braun have allegedly told the singer she is not allowed to perform the songs on television because that would constitute re-recording her music.

Earlier this year, Braun purchased Swift’s old record label Big Machine  Records from Borchetta for a reported $300 million, acquiring the master rights to six of her previous albums. Under the terms of the acquisition, Swift can re-record her music, but not until 2020.

Swift also revealed that Netflix has created a documentary about her life.

“Scott and Scooter have declined the use of my older music or performance footage for this project, even though there is no mention of either of them or Big Machine Records anywhere in the film,” she said.

The singer alleged that Borchetta told her team that he will allow her to use her music only if she agrees not to re-record copycat versions of her songs next year, “which is something I’m both legally allowed to do and looking forward to'', she said.

“The message sent to me is very clear. Basically, be a good little girl and shut up. Or you will be punished.

“This is WRONG. Neither of these men had a hand in the writing of those songs. They did nothing to create the relationship I have with my fans.

“I just want to be able to perform my own music. That’s it,” the singer said.

In June this year, Swift said that Borchetta’s sale of her music to Braun came as a surprise to her and was the “worst case scenario” in a post to her Tumblr account.

Swift has been publicly feuding with Scooter for years, alleging that Braun orchestrated “bullying” of the singer at the hands of other artists he works with such as Justin Bieber and Kanye West.

At the time, Borchetta released a statement on Big Machine Records, claiming that Swift had been “given the opportunity to own her masters but passed. He also said Swift should have known about the deal because her father was “a shareholder and was notified”.

But Swift rebuked these claims, alleging that she would have to do “sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one [she] turned in”.

“When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter,” Swift said.

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