People need to stop calling that record deal shady

The bottom line is when a new artist is starting out, the producer, manager, and the record company is taking all of the risk particularly with a first album. If TLC hadn't been as successful as they were on that first album, all that money for the record, the videos, the studio time, music production etc would have been paid out and the producer, manager, and record company would have been out of money. They invested in the artist and took all the risk...they should get the highest payout.

TLC needs to take responsibility for their part in this. They should have hired better people to help them understand the finances and they should have lived within their means until they could renegotiate their contract after the first album. It was not Pebbles, LaFace, or Arista's fault that they were broke. They took a risk on them and it paid off.