Williams, whose track record has made him one of the most in-demand collaborators of the past two decades, had painstakingly negotiated with Sony’s recorded and publishing arms for control of his intellectual property. It was an acknowledgment of equity that questioned the very makeup of an industry built on a shameful history of exploitation: namely, on the backs of Black talent from whom all modern genres derive.
Source: The Big Payback: How Pharrell Williams Is Breaking the Chains of the Music Industry’s Troubled Past