Wealth & Money Quote by Solomon Burke

Burke’s line is the kind of hard-won business wisdom that only sounds casual if you’ve never been on the wrong side of a record deal. He’s not bragging about being rich; he’s describing how to avoid the particular trap the music industry perfected: debt disguised as opportunity. “Borrow money from the record company” is code for an advance that feels like validation up front, then turns into a leash. Once you owe the label, they don’t just own your recordings; they own your options.

The intent is bluntly practical: build leverage. Publishing and songwriting aren’t glamorous compared to touring or hits, but they’re the quiet engine of lasting income. Burke’s emphasis on “my own publishing company” and “my own writers” signals an artist thinking like an operator, not a hired voice. It’s also an implicit critique of how many Black artists of his era were routed into performance while others captured the ownership layers underneath. Control the publishing, and you control the annuity; control the writers, and you control the pipeline.

The subtext is self-protection disguised as self-sufficiency. “Enough to get and do whatever I wanted to do” isn’t hedonism; it’s artistic autonomy. It means recording when you want, with whom you want, without asking permission from the same entity that profits from keeping you dependent.

In a modern context of 360 deals and streaming-era pennies, Burke’s point lands even harder: the real flex isn’t the advance, it’s not needing one. Ownership isn’t ideology here. It’s oxygen.