Impossible (Working Title)

Chapter 3 - The Meeting

This was it - the meeting with Suarez Dario Riccardo, Mr Olen Lymen's best friend. The man who was going to be deciding the fate of my music career. My fucking career!

Why, you would ask? Well, because he had the money. And Mr Lymen needed the money for his record label. Don't get me wrong. Mr Lymen was a big fish himself. But as the sea grows, so do the fish. Mr Lymen owned the record label responsible for making numerous artists stars. He was known in the industry for finding new, budding talent who would rock the music world, the next big thing. King-maker, he was called the king maker of our world.

I couldn't argue with that. He certainly did pick me up from a small town and put me on front page of music world. All my three albums had been released by his company. So, yes, I was grateful to him but in the process, he had made tonnes of money off me too. This was his super successful business model that he had mastered over all these years. Only problem was that along with buzzing loads of money, he was losing it too. He had been investing in several other businesses across industries and not all of his investments had paid off.

And that's where Suarez Darios Riccardo came in. He was Mr Lymen's good old friend from a filthy rich Italian family, though his mother was Spanish. They were known to be swimming in money, loaded with so much moolah that they probably even shitted gold. Mr Riccardo had started taking interest in the music industry and his dear friend, Olen provided a perfect entry. Of late most of the decisions in Mr Lymen's board room were taken by Suarez Riccardo.

If anyone would have asked me earlier, I would have said none of that impacts me. I was an artist. My only concern was my creativity while the businessmen looked after the business and other such materialistic stuff. But soon I knew it was just a naïve wishing. Being the owner and more importantly, controller of the source of money, makes you have a say in every damn thing.

It started off with little inputs on production work or which market to focus on, to ideas for my music videos, or where I should be doing my concerts, or whom to collab with and who should I be interviewed by. I ignored it for long till it became obvious they won't stop there. There were inputs on my lyrics, or the kind the music, completely interfering with what I wanted to do with my music. I had a major show down with Mr Lymen in his room six months back which I am sure the whole office heard of.

I was dead against their interference in what I spoke about through my work. Seeing my nasty reaction, they backed off but not completely. I knew for sure my lyrics were being scrutinized and I hated it. In fact, that's the reason work on my next album had also slowed down. None of it was official. Nobody openly told me off but I could feel the undercurrents in last couple of months. My concerts were reduced, especially controlling where I performed live.

The only place they had not been able to interfere was my social media handles. I knew there was intense pressure on my media agency team to give in and let them control my feeds as well as my presence but I had put my foot down. It had nothing to do with my work with the Company and I had flatly refused to pay heed to any of their suggestions. I said and did what I believed in, saying that the no matter what, I wouldn't let them control me completely.

But to say I had been successful in the process would not be fully true. My stubbornness was causing me more harm. I knew it. As my fan base was increasing on social media, my actual work was suffering. The plan for my next album nowhere in sight. My number of live performances were also coming down.

And last night, while the concert had been exceptionally loved and the ground was packet to the generators, all I kept hearing from Mr Lymen and Mr Riccardo was that the next concert would have to be pushed off. All because the current favour of the year had not accepted to collab with me.