The private emails between our team are pretty hilarious. The first response all of us had when the press for 10 year old Aiden Jude's single "Tonight" dropped was "who ghost produced this?" Our Editor-In-Chief khal kind of shit on the track, saying it sounded like "Animals" hinting that it lacked innovation, but noted that this young DJ was landing more reputable gigs than 99% of the industry, playing at Lavo in New York and opening up for Mobb Deep in Hollywood. We forgave that little hiccup in the build (because he's 10), and gave him the benefit of the doubt on this production, but made several private mentions that the whole scene smelled fishy.
In a hilarious turn of events, the follow-up press for "Tonight" reveals that this song was co-written by Universal artist Carlos Escalona, who has produced records for successful Universal Latin artists Ana Isabelle and Paulina Rubio. Jude's team somehow forgot to credit Escalona in this production, and the first run of PR for the single made no mention of the assist. In a market saturated with ghost producers, we imagine that Escalona crafted the work for Jude to purchase (Less Than 3 seems to agree), and Jude's fresh career already has an asterisk next to it. And while our assumption is nothing more than that, we're absolutely certain that Jude didn't create this record by himself.
This is the second time this year that the career of a minor was mishandled by a major label. Cole Plante's team still hasn't reached back out to explain those fake plays, and both of these instances make us shake our heads at the current state of the music industry. Hard work and talent is pushed aside for marketing and budget, and it's even more disgusting when the pawn for this deceit is a 10-year-old child. We have no idea why the mainstream market continues to cut corners and manufacture artists that they think are marketable instead of pushing actual talent. Fixing the industry's flaws seems like a no-brainer, but what do I know? I'm just a blogger.
