Laura Mvula claims she found out she'd been dropped by record label Sony via forwarded email

The British soul singer found out her contract wasn't being renewed last year 
Dropped: Laura Mvula found out that she was being dropped by Sony via email
Chris Jackson/Getty
Jennifer Ruby21 March 2017
The Weekender

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Laura Mvula says she found out that she was being dropped by her record label over email.

The British soul singer claims that she discovered that her deal with Sony was being terminated via a seven-line forwarded message that felt ‘cold and cruel’.

Mvula says that her former manager was told the news when she met representatives of the Sony subsidiary RCA Victor face-to-face, but it was relayed to her via email.

“I didn't see anyone, I didn't hear anybody's voice. I just read words. It felt so cold and cruel,” she told the BBC.

Critically-acclaimed: Laura's first record was nominated for the Mercury Prize
Dave Benett

“Not even the fact that I was dropped, the way that the whole thing happened. To be treated like that doesn't feel quite just.

“I guess in my head I always thought there would be a conversation, a renegotiation, but never a kinda, 'it's over'.”

The singer, 30, went on to say that she has been ‘naïve’ about the nature of the music industry and expected her label to support her throughout her career.

“I was definitely naive in the beginning," she said. “When I was signed, I thought when someone says, we love you and we're with you until the end, that's what they mean.”

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Mvula first signed to the label five years ago, releasing her Brit and Mercury –nominated debut album Sing to the Moon in 2013.

Despite the success of her debut, Mvula’s follow-up The Dreaming Room failed to crack to the top 10 when it was released last year.

Evening Standard Online had contacted Sony for comment.

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