made millions and he should owe me millions.'įast forward 65 years, and that kind of egregious exploitation of a Black artist might seem unthinkable.
The very thought of it is sickening to me now. 'It didn't matter how many records you sold if you were Black…. 'If you wanted to record, you signed on their terms or you didn't record,' Richard later told his biographer. According to Richard's biographer, an unknown white artist in those days typically made ten times that much. Rupe bought 'Tutti Frutti' for $50, and paid Richard half a cent for every copy it sold. Over the years, the song made millions of dollars for Specialty's owner, a white man named Art Rupe-but Richard received only a fraction of the proceeds. But one would go on to change the course of music history, laying the foundation for what later became known as rock 'n' roll: 'Tutti Frutti.'Ī week and a half after it was released, 'Tutti Frutti' had sold 200,000 copies by 1968, it had sold more than 3 million, and Little Richard had become a superstar. Richard recorded five songs, four of which most people have never heard of. He sent a demo to Specialty Records-one of the few labels working with Black artists in the early 1950s-and called them nearly every week for a year, begging them for studio time. His only hope, he thought, was to make a hit song, and he was desperate for a chance to record.
