00:00Hi, I'm Oya Obanito and I have something to talk about.
00:07I'm a musician of course, I'm an author, I'm a writer, I have books that are on Barnes
00:12and Nobles and Amazon.com, I'm a blogger as well, I write blogs, I produce my own music
00:18videos, I have 18 music videos, but recently something happened to me that I want to talk
00:26about a little bit. It's hard to articulate this, but I'm going to go ahead and talk about
00:32it anyway. A month ago on March 27th, I received a letter from CD Baby saying that they were
00:40taking my music down off all the platforms and they did. The only platform they left my
00:48music on was Pandora. My music is still available on Pandora. I have my whole discography is
00:56on Pandora, so if you want to go check it out, search for Oya Obanito on Pandora. They
01:03still haven't taken that down yet, so I still have that left. But I don't like CD Baby. I've
01:08been with CD Baby for five years. I found out about CD Baby when I went to a studio called
01:14Hit and Run Records. I'm sorry, Hit and Run Recording in Maryland. And that's when I found
01:23out about CD Baby. The dude that runs the studio in Maryland told me about it. He told me that
01:29I can release my music on all platforms. I thought it was a good idea. So I released my
01:34first single, Blue Sky, in 2021. And everything was going smooth for the past five years until
01:43recently I found out that my royalties were in the negative. And I was trying to figure out
01:49why is there showing a negative balance for my royalties? But they never explained anything.
01:54They just pulled my music down and they didn't even tell me why. It says something about in the
02:00letter it said that they pulled my music down due to an abusive streaming pattern or something like
02:08that. So yeah, I don't think that that was fair, but that's what they did. All my hard work,
02:15all my creativity, all the things that I put into my music were taken away from me.
02:23I've spent over $8,000 over the past five years, which is roughly $1,600 a year. So I spent
02:31roughly
02:32$1,600 each year on my music, which is not a lot of money, but I'm an indie musician. I'm
02:38not signed to
02:39a big label. I've never been signed to a major label. So all this money is coming out of my
02:45pocket.
02:45So I spent roughly $8,000 over the past five years on my music career. And all of that went
02:51down the
02:52drain. I've ran up credit cards. Also, I have seven credit cards that I have to pay for. I spent
03:02a lot
03:02of the credit cards on my music. And so to have my whole catalog pulled down and taken away from
03:08me
03:08is just devastating. It's heartbreaking. It opened up my eyes to these distribute. I've been doing a
03:16little bit of research. I've been watching other people's YouTube videos and things so I could learn
03:20more about it. I never read CD Baby's terms of service. I'm not a lawyer. I dropped out of college.
03:27So I'm not good at reading terms of service. So I didn't sit there and read all of that information.
03:34So I don't even really know, you know, why they did it. I just, it just had, it kind of,
03:40they kind of just did it without warning. My music is, like I said, it's still available on Pandora.
03:48It's also still available on CD. I use Kanaki to distribute my CDs. Um, I've been with Kanaki for
03:56about, um, for about three or four years now. Um, everything's been going good with them. So my
04:04music is still on a CD is still on SoundCloud and it's still on Audio Mac. So if anybody's looking
04:11for Oya Obenito, you know, you can find me on Audio Mac and you can find me on SoundCloud and
04:15you
04:15can find me on, um, Kanaki, find my CDs on Kanaki. Um, but yeah, that's all I had to say.
04:24I was just
04:25wanting to say that, you know, it really was heartbreaking. It's hard for me to cry,
04:31but I shed a tear when I found out my music was taken down off the streaming platforms. I wanted
04:37my music to reach a global, um, a global reach. I wanted it to reach people all across the world,
04:45not just local people, not just people that can find me locally and by my city. I wanted my music
04:51to reach people all across the world. And so for me to have that taken for me, which is devastating,
04:57but, um, I'm not switching. I'm not going to switch to Disco Kid. I've heard a lot about Disco Kid.
05:04I've also did my research on them. And cause if I switch to Disco Kid, Spotify might do the same
05:10thing to me again. They might try to have my music removed again after I switched to Disco Kid. So
05:16I'm not switching. I'm just leaving my music on CD, Audio Mac and SoundCloud. That's it.
05:24And Pandora. I don't know how long it's going to stay, how much longer it's going to be on Pandora,
05:28but for the time being, it's still on there. My whole catalog is still there. So that's good.
05:34That's all I got left is Pandora. That's everything else has been stripped away.
05:39But, um, and you, to be honest with you, I got tired of making music. I got tired of
05:47putting so much blood, sweat and tears into my music and people not listening to it. I got tired
05:53of that. I got tired of open mic. I got tired of making music videos in the same location. Cause
06:02I've been making music video. I made 17 videos in Virginia. My very first music video called
06:08step-by-step, I filmed that in Illinois and Iowa. Um, part of it was filmed in Illinois and the
06:16other
06:16part was filmed in Iowa. So that's the only music video that I have out of state. The rest of
06:22my music
06:22videos were filmed in Virginia and I kind of got tired of it. I wanted to change the scenery, but
06:28I
06:28don't really feel like traveling because people aren't paying me and people aren't giving me the
06:32respect that I feel like I deserve after putting so much hard work into my music. I put all my
06:39lyrics were handwritten by me. I don't use AI to write my lyrics. You can tell that the music was
06:44written by me because it has its own style. The, my music that I write has its own style. It
06:51wasn't
06:51written by AI. The only thing I use AI for is beats. I used to buy my beats from different
06:57random
06:57producers that I found online, but they, over time, they started seeming sketchy to me. So I just
07:03started using Suno to create my beats and, um, the, the lyrics are written by me, but the beats are
07:09generated by it. Some of the beats are generated by AI. Um, but other than that, um, I kind of
07:20got
07:20tongue twisted here. Um, my, uh, so after seeing so much blood, sweat and tear going to my music
07:29is kind of, I'm kind of okay with it being taken out. I mean, I don't want to make any,
07:35um, I'm kind
07:36of tired of making music videos in Virginia. I'm tired of the open mics. I'm just tired. I'm fed up.
07:43I've had enough. Um, I've decided that instead of focusing on music, I'm going to focus on acting.
07:51Um, so I created a profile on backstage.com. Um, the membership fee was $25 a month. Now, like I
08:01said,
08:01I'm in Virginia, so I don't think that, um, and I'm a black African American woman. Uh, so, uh,
08:10I have to narrow when I search for jobs, acting jobs in my local area, I have to narrow the
08:16search
08:16down. I have to narrow the search down to exactly what city I'm in. And I have to narrow it
08:22down to
08:22my, um, age and also my race and, and my gender. So once I narrow it down, I only saw
08:30maybe like 20
08:31jobs available and I still didn't fit the description of what they were looking for. So I don't think that,
08:36um, I'm going to keep my backstage account because I don't, I'm not willing to travel to another state
08:41to act. I'm just not, um, I'm tired of traveling from state to state. I'm just going to stay in
08:48Virginia and kind of kick it here for the next few, so few years. I don't know, maybe 10 or
08:53more years.
08:54Um, I'm just going to go ahead and hang out here in VA. Um, I don't feel like traveling to
09:00another
09:00state. I, uh, not even to chase my dreams because I feel like my dreams are turning into pipe dreams.
09:06When I first started doing music, I had really big dreams. I had dreams of making it out of VA.
09:12I had dreams
09:13of winning a Grammy dreams against side to a major label dreams of traveling across the world, doing world
09:21tours, um, selling out shows, um, getting interviews with top on top podcasts, famous podcasts, meeting
09:30famous people, doing, uh, doing collabs. I had big dreams of doing features with celebrities and
09:38things like that, um, winning awards. And over the years, my dreams diminished. And when CD Baby pulled
09:46my, uh, catalog down, all of my dreams diminished, like every last one of them. So I don't, I no
09:53longer
09:53had the hopes and dreams that I used to have of being a big major artist in the world. Um,
10:00those dreams
10:00have been shattered completely. So I'm just going to focus on acting and instead of using back, say,
10:06I, I have a couple more weeks before my, um, subscription would expire, but when it does
10:11expire, I'm not going to renew it because like I said, there's not many jobs available that fit my
10:17age, gender, and location. Um, most of the jobs are in like LA or New York or Atlanta. So
10:26there's not a lot of acting gigs around here, but, um, I did use the Virginia casting call website to
10:33find a acting gig. Um, I got, I recently got selected as a cast member for a movie called
10:41Shattered Trust. That's supposed to be starting to film on May 1st. Um, so that's good. Um, I'm going
10:48to be part of the cast. I have only had three lines to remember, so that's good. I don't have
10:53to
10:54remember a whole lot. Um, and I have to be there on May 6th because that's my film date. That's
11:01was, that's the day that I'm supposed to be filming my, my part. Um, and that's going to be in
11:07Newport
11:08News, Virginia. And so just stay tuned for more updates about the movie Shattered Trust. Um,
11:14it's produced by KP Unscripted Productions. And, um, so be looking out for that. I'm going to be using
11:22the Virginia casting call website from now on to look for more acting gigs. I'm not going to travel
11:27outside of the state. Um, and yeah, that's basically all I have to say. That's it. My music was pulled
11:35down. Um, it hurt. It broke my heart. Um, Pandora is the only platform I'm left on now. I don't
11:43have
11:43any other, um, music on any other, other, other platforms. All of it was pulled down. Um,
11:51and that's all I have to say. Um, stay tuned for more updates. Stay tuned for the movie Shattered
11:56Trust is coming out on Tubi and other streaming platforms. I'm going to be in it. I only have a
12:02few lines, but like I said, be looking out for me in it. Um, and that's it. Uh, so I'm
12:08out.
12:09Follow me on social media at Oyao Benito though on all, um, well, not on all platforms. I can't
12:17even say that anymore. Um, follow me on YouTube. Um, follow me on SoundCloud, Audio Mac, um, Daily
12:24Motion, um, Parler, and follow my website, www.nofemalesaloud.com. I'm out.
