\n<\/p>\n
Kesha \u2014 yes, \u201cbrush my teeth with a bottle of Jack\u201d Kesha \u2014 is now a startup founder. But if you think her journey from raunchy pop star to CEO is unexpected, then you haven\u2019t been paying attention.<\/p>\n
Kesha has always embraced contradictions. She exploded onto the pop scene in 2010 with irreverent ear candy like \u201cBlah Blah Blah\u201d and \u201cTiK ToK,\u201d stylizing her name with a dollar sign despite throwing shade at the egregious wealth of Hollywood. She didn\u2019t let people dismiss her as a one-dimensional, glitter-clad party girl. As beleaguered high schoolers studied for exams amid Kesha\u2019s rise to fame, they whispered in frustration about how the world\u2019s most famous party girl got a near-perfect score on the SAT<\/a> but turned down a full ride to Barnard College to sing about peeing in champagne bottles.<\/p>\n The biggest contradiction of Kesha\u2019s story is that despite living the dream of a pop star on the surface, her years in the spotlight were nightmarish behind the scenes. Now, drawing from her own experience suffering at the hands of predatory record contracts, Kesha is building an app called Smash<\/a>, which is a way for musicians to find one another, make music together, and establish clear, artist-friendly contracts among collaborators.<\/p>\n Smash aims to set itself apart by using a built-in system to generate contracts between artists. The terms of the contracts depend on what each artist decides \u2014 for example, a musician may decide to license a beat for a set fee or request a percentage of royalties over time. Smash would fund itself by taking a small cut of payments made through the app.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the pieces of leverage, especially over younger music creators, is you need a way into the club,\u201d Kesha\u2019s brother and Smash co-founder Lagan Sebert told TechCrunch. \u201cWith Smash, we want to give music creators the keys to get into this club of professionals and other creators without them feeling like they have to sign anything away, or make any large decisions about the rest of their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n After establishing herself as a powerhouse pop star, Kesha sued her producer Dr. Luke in 2014 for alleged sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. He immediately countersued her for defamation, sparking a high-profile legal battle and reckoning with the dark side of pop music.<\/p>\n Though Kesha sought to get out of her recording contract with Dr. Luke, the court ruled against her, forcing her to release three more albums with him.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span> It was only this month \u2014 on July 4, a date chosen very intentionally \u2014 that Kesha released an album without Dr. Luke for the first time. But regaining her own artistic agency isn\u2019t enough. Now that she is a fully independent artist, she wants to help ensure that other young musicians don\u2019t fall victim to exploitative record deals like she did.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things that really motivated her was when she went through this long legal battle to regain the rights to her voice, regain rights to her music,\u201d Sebert said. \u201cI think the motivation behind Smash more than anything was to try to give music creators access to the community they need to create music independently.\u201d<\/p>\n If Kesha and her brother were going to build an app, they were going to need some technological expertise.<\/p>\n Years ago, Kesha attended an ACTAI Ventures event and met Lars Rasmussen, who co-founded Google Maps and was one of the first investors in design unicorn Canva. The two stayed in touch, and when it came time to build Smash, Rasmussen introduced her to Alan Cannistraro, who would become the app\u2019s CTO.<\/p>\n Cannistraro spent over 12 years at Apple, where he worked on products for creatives like Final Cut; he also managed a team of engineers to build the first ever apps for iOS, like Remote, iBooks, iTunes, and Podcasts. He went on to start Rheo<\/a>, a social video startup, but he has always had an interest in music.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the late \u201890s, when my friends were all using Napster, I was saying to them, \u2018What the hell, you like this music. Why are you screwing the artist?\u2019\u201d Cannistraro told TechCrunch. \u201cIt\u2019s always just been in my value system that artists need to be supported.\u201d<\/p>\n When Kesha, her brother Lagan, and Cannistraro started working together, Rasmussen became one of their first investors. Kesha even announced the app as part of Rasmussen\u2019s Panath\u0113nea festival in Greece.<\/p>\n \n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\nBuilding the band<\/h2>\n