Photo by Ben Moreland on Unsplash

Taylor Swift is a G. She’s gone from “Teardrops on My Guitar” to completely dominating the music industry and inspiring women everywhere. And on the eve of her 30th birthday, Taylor Swift proved exactly why we love her.

She Gave a Shoutout to New Artists

In true female empowerment fashion, Taylor gave a shoutout to new artists that she respects. I’ll list them here for you, “Lizzo, Rosalia, Taylor Parks, Hayley Kiyoko, King Princess, Camilla Cabello, Halsey, Megan the Stallion, Princess Nokia, Nina Nesbitt, Sigrid, Normani, H.E.R., Maggie Rogers, Becky G, Dua Lipa, Ella Mai, and Billie Eilish.”

Yeah, quite a few and she covered more than just the pop genre which I appreciated. Like, she gave props to Megan the Stallion and a slew of new up and coming rappers which didn’t surprise me because I know Taylor likes all music but I don’t know, it just made me smile.

She Called Out Streaming Services

At a time when Taylor has been fighting for artists to have more control over their music when it comes to streaming services, she covered all of her efforts in this category saying in part, “In music, we’re always walking hand in hand with technology and sometimes that is so awesome. Like, we’re able to just drop a song we just made yesterday.”

She went on, “I’ve spoken out in the past about the future of revenue flow for creators and the songwriters and producers who are being left behind due to these rapid shifts and changes. I still don’t think that record contracts or producer’s agreements have fully caught up and I hope that in the next decade we keep searching for the right solution.”

She Completely Called Out Scooter Braun

Not only did she call out Scooter Braun but she called out basically everyone that supports him or works with him which includes Justin Bieber and Demi Lovato (ouuu scandalous). She said, “Lately there’s been a new shift that has affected me personally and that I feel is a potentially harmful threat in our industry. And as your resident loud person, I feel the need to bring it up. And that is the unregulated world of private equity coming in and buying up our music as if it is real estate.”

She continued, “This just happened to me without my approval, consultation or consent. After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalog was sold to Scooter Braun”.

She went on to explain that, “Scooter never contacted me or my team to discuss it prior to the sale or even when it was announced.”

Taylor didn’t stop there. She continued to dig into Scooter Braun and his supporters.

“The definition of the toxic male privilege in our industry is people saying, ‘but he’s always been nice to me’ when I’m raising valid concerns about artists and their rights to own their music,” said Taylor. “Of course he’s nice to you. If you’re in this room, you have something he needs.”

Yikes.

At this moment Taylor was calling out all of the artists Scooter works with and all of the people that have come out in his support recently. A little hint, dats a lot of people, including Ariana Grande, who has worked with Braun for years as her manager. Ariana has yet to put her two cents into this battle (probably for good reason) but Taylor came for everybody’s souls, including Demi Lovato (who signed with Scooter as her manager earlier this year) and Justin Bieber.

She Explains Her Journey

I thought this was so sad and it makes me tear up a little to think about how she’s been affected by the media. Taylor said, “basically if people had something to say about me, I usually said something back in my own way.” She referenced songs that mocked headlines like Mean, Shake it Off and Blank Space. But she went on to explain that this reflex affected more than her music.

After she received speculation of not writing all of her own music due to having co-writers and not having as strong of a singing voice she said, “I decided I would be the only songwriter writer on my third album Speak Now and that I would tour constantly and work on my vocals every day… I decided to be what they said I couldn’t be.

She explained how she didn’t realize that people would continue to find things she wasn’t doing right and that the circle would go on and she would, “keep accommodating and overcorrecting in an effort to appease critics.”

“They say I’m dating too much in my twenties, okay, I’ll stop. I’ll just be single for years. Now they’re saying my album Red is filled with too many break-up songs, okay um, I’ll make one about moving to New York and deciding that really my life is more fun with just my friends. Oh, they’re saying my music is changing too much to stay in country music, alright okay, here’s an entire genre shift and a pop album named 1989. Now it’s that I’m showing you too many pictures with my friends, okay, I can stop doing that too. Now I’m actually a calculated, manipulator rather than a smart businesswoman, okay I’ll disappear from public view for years. Now I’m being cast as a villain to you, okay, here’s an album called Reputation and there are lots of snakes everywhere.

I have to say this part of the speech was very moving. It made me realize that Taylor Swift is just like me. She’s a people pleaser and the way she spelled it out brought back all the memories as I’ve followed along on her journey the past 14 years. She’s not perfect and she’s growing as a human and I just really appreciate her recognizing this fact and putting it out there.

By doing this she’s helping other young artists, and women in general (including myself), realize that they don’t have to make everyone else happy. It’s actually okay to just be yourself.

“Lately I’ve been focusing less on doing on what they say I can’t do and more on doing whatever the hell I want.” – Taylor Swift

Today is actually her 30th birthday. So, Happy Birthday Taylor. I can’t wait to see what your future holds.