The music industry wasn't always kind to Keke Palmer.
In a new cover story interview for The Cut, the multi-hyphenate performer, 31, opened up about working in the entertainment business since childhood and why she took the reigns of her music career into her own hands.
One year after Palmer's breakthrough role in 2006's Akeelah and the Bee, she released her debut album, So Uncool, via Atlantic Records. Following her exit from the record label, she signed with Interscope Records and later Island Records, through which she released 2016's Lauren EP.
Keke Palmer in January 2025.Paras Griffin/Getty
However, she ultimately felt the music industry didn't know how to package her as an artist.
"You need to know how to understand data and how to speak to people who are not creative so they can make more money," Palmer told the outlet.
"Music is a numbers game," she added. "It feels a little more soulless."
Keke Palmer in December 2024.Paras Griffin/Getty
Palmer has since launched her own label, Big Bosses Entertainment, and released her latest album, Big Boss, through the company in 2023. In an interview with PEOPLE about the project, she spoke about the "stifling" experience of shifting through various record labels.
"I learned a lot of stuff just about what I really needed as an artist, which was artist development. I really spent a lot of those years figuring out what went wrong or why things weren't connecting for me as an artist," she said at the time. "I think with labels, there isn't any artist development. A lot of times they'll try stuff to throw stuff out, then it doesn't work and it's your fault. They don't really support the artists in being able to discover how to share their voice, how to tell their story."
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The Nope star, who's mom to son Leodis "Leo" Andrellton with ex-boyfriend Darius Jackson, continued, "It's almost like, to connect it to breastfeeding, it's like breastfeeding is a natural thing, but getting into it doesn't come to you naturally. I think that's what it's like being an artist."
"I'm talented, I can sing, I can perform, I can do all that, but knowing how to present that to the world, there's still an art to that," explained Palmer. "My experience with labels taught me that I had to figure that out because they weren't able to really help me with it."
Palmer stars alongside SZA in the new film One of Them Days, in theaters now.
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