James Blake has suggested major record labels “should be required to provide a therapist to their artists”.
The Grammy-award winning singer made the comment on X, adding, “You shouldn’t get to profit from our trauma without helping with the pitfalls of it.”
He went on to clarify that “Live agents and managing companies too. All of them have a vested interest in the artist becoming more successful, which means disconnected from support systems/family/friends by being thrown into a strange disconnected world of touring and parasocial media.”
The Overgrown singer concluded, “I’m not suggesting a label provide their sanctioned therapist to be clear just that they should fund therapy.”
James, 35, has previously been open about how touring has affected his mental health.
“There are a lot of musicians just starting out now who might not be aware of the pitfalls of touring, and the pitfalls of a musician’s life,” he said in 2019. “Mental health on the road is something which has generally been left until this generation to really deal with. I think we’ve seen the effects of the artist’s life laid out for us in previous generations, and I think we’re just starting to go, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t use these methods to cope with it, maybe I should talk to somebody.’”
