On July 28, 2024, around 5 AM, I was awoken by a facebook message. Usually, I just ignore messages on my phone at that time, but I didn't know if it was work related, so I got up to look.
I received a message from this man named Curtis Martin stating "I wanna see your boobs" and at first I thought to myself, "Damn another typical man." I usually just block them and move on with my life. It was 5 AM and he irritated me, so I wrote him back asking if he was okay and he responded that basically breast photos have a price. Which gave me instant disgust. He went on to blame his actions on him being drunk at the time. I have never interacted with this man before on social media at all. I have 5,000 friends on facebook and I don't know a lot of those people. So when Curtis decided to message me this, I went and looked at his profile to see who this creep was.
When I went to his profile, I was shocked that he produces musicians that I listen to and I'm actually friends with, which made my stomach turn even more. This man produces music for genuine individuals? I was not going to let this slide at all because as a woman photographer in this industry, we get enough disrespect by men constantly and this was my final straw. At this moment, you can see in the screenshots that he realized he made a mistake by messaging me because I was not falling for anything. Blaming his actions on his alcoholism is ridiculous because, I come to find out during those next 24 hours, he was supposed to be getting his alcohol problem under control because of how many past problems he has caused for people.
Let's look at these screenshots. You have a man who is clearly deflecting his behavior and attempting to use his status to basically intimidate me. "My own assistant I pay puts me in place." Why would you even say that? That clearly states you have no self control and you need to be babysat by other people to act like a decent person. I don't care if you're an ex marine. I don't care what issues you have. Don't attempt to try to gaslight me or make me feel bad because your actions FINALLY have consequences.
"My assistant is your fave artists BF." He really thought I would care. Don't EVER attempt to use your industry status to get out of a situation like this. Especially with ME because I will not tolerate it. He went on and stated what bands he produces and, again, I don't care. And then he brought up an artist that had allegations against them, Tyler Carter. Hinting that if Tyler Carter can be cancelled and ghost write music than no matter what, he is untouchable, which automatically made me really mad. How are you going to bring up someone in the scene like that while we are having a conversation about you being a creep?
Now at this point, I feel like my photography career could be in jeopardy because of how this man was talking, but he did state he would never be spiteful like that, which I didn't believe at all because in the next 24 hours of this whole situation you will learn that Curtis Martin is a predator and did this behavior to so many other people in this industry. During this time frame, I talked to several musician friends who produce music with him and talked to a record label that also had one of their bands making music with this man last year. All these sources told me they currently have no association with this man at all now.
The next day after the whole situation, he decided to delete every single message he sent, which made me realize this man is hiding from his actions. Then I received a fake apology that I didn't believe one word of. You can see in the screenshots that I clearly didn't care because I knew this man was not sorry. He was sorry because someone finally spoke up and reported him to several people. I just wanted to talk to his manager-that's it-because an apology means nothing. It's just meaningless words. The record label I spoke to the day before forwarded everything I stated to his manager and I decided to write his manager myself. We had a 42 minute phone call meeting about this whole situation. After the phone call, I knew I had to do this on my own because I knew his manager was not going to do anything about it. I give the manager respect for listening to me, but I knew Curtis would get away with it and continue with these behaviors. I decided to make a Instagram post and it went viral in less than a hour. I will be putting all the screenshots of that post in this and I will also be putting a story on here about a female musician who also experienced a traumatic experience with this man.
On July 29, I made an Instagram post and here it is below. I used the same screenshots in the beginning of the article for this post. Thank you to my best friend Kelsey for giving me the courage to actually post this whole situation because she knew how nervous I was about this. Women in this industry lose so many opportunities if they speak up and expose anyone. This was ME taking a stand for myself and for other people this man could've hurt. When this post was created, so many people came forward about him. You can even see musicians in the comments acknowledging this mans behavior. You can see SO MANY WOMEN stating what he did to them personally as well. I realized with this post and exposing this man in the industry, I freed so many women from being so fearful of this horrendous man.
Now here is a story of a female musician Kat Kalling. When the post went viral, she saw the man who hurt her being held accountable for his actions, now finally brought to light. And she had the courage to finally tell her story. This is her story below and I am so proud of her for coming forward. I know it takes a lot for women, especially those in the music industry, to come forward about situations like this to avoid backlash or destroying their brand. She is valid. Her feelings are valid. And she deserves to finally be heard
Here is another story of a woman named Kayla, who experienced first hand how Curtis attempted to use his music status to get her to date him. You can clearly see that Kayla is irritated with Curtis and that this man kept attempting to overpower her in this conversation, to the point where he realized he was not going to win. I look at these conversations and I think to myself, "What women were easily manipulated by this man?" We don't respect individuals who uses their higher status to get what they want. Especially a RELATIONSHIP when its NOT wanted.
Here is another story from a female musician and here are her screenshots. She wanted to stay anonymous to prevent her family being involved. Which just shows what type of man Curtis is. If a woman is afraid for herself and her family, what does that tell you about him?
Here is another story of a young woman who experienced abuse by Curtis. She took the time to make bullets of her whole experience and she deserves to be heard as well.
Timeline of Abuse
Met in 2017 in North Carolina, through mutuals, before I moved to California
After moving to CA, he relocated to Vegas. Through mutual gain, again, recruited me as a client as he knew me through another producer and friend I worked with from back home.
I worked with them as a team, but eventually he aimed to poach me as a client he would work with solely, bad mouthing the other producers work ethic as a means to push his own agenda.
During this timeframe, he would interact with me, acting as it was a friendship as we had a “common goal” and a “mutual good friend.”
In 2018, we worked on a couple of tracks, ironically one song about overcoming abusive relationships (which was rooted in my personal experience in childhood with a stepparent and IPV).
In 2019, I released this track under a new artist name. When I decided to rebrand as a solo artist, this was my personal decision, but in thinking I was speaking to someone I could trust about big decisions, he bad-mouthed and put down the current team I was working with, other producers I worked with, and the writing style of previous music I put out or worked on. Telling me I needed to do more with my career and that I wasn’t doing enough to be successful. Dangling his own successes over my head in an attempt to say that, if I continued to work with him, he could help me. Masking it as a “great deal” and that I’m receiving a “friend discount.”
In 2020 when the world shut down, and contacts were minimal, I attempted to work with other producers and branch out my network to work with other people, but I would be bombarded with messages or breadcrumbed to continue a professional and personal platonic relationship with him. He, again, offered me a bundle/package deal, locking me into a rate that he knew would be affordable in comparison to others, and promising to connect me with other bigger artists he was working with to help me with my own career.
In 2021, I started to catch on that all these promises were empty promises. He would takes weeks to get me edits and final masters of tracks, pushing me behind on deadlines for releases. Then when tracks would release, he would message me out of the blue to harass me about credits being put incorrectly into the system, and telling me off, borderline verbally harassing about how I need to get it together and fix it, because it’s not a good look. Calling me unprofessional. I would often wake up to bombardments of messages whether they were drunken or sober, telling me off about how I do so much wrong and this is why I’m not “successful.” Other times, I would just wake up to random one worded messages sent in the middle of the night because he was drunk, saying hello, masking flirtatious messages by calling me “sis” and making our relationship seem like we were as close as siblings. Making it seem like he is looking out for me, telling me who I should and shouldn’t spend my time with. Getting upset when I met with a fellow artist he worked with. Spoke poorly about me behind my back, pitted his female clients against one another, and gatekept certain opportunities from me, offering them and promising to help me with options, but then never following through. He would use this as leverage to continue the professional relationship. Eventually, I became more certain this dynamic was no longer healthy, and I decided to step away from music temporarily until I could recover from the many losses that came from this dynamic.
At the end of 2021, I put in motion to buy out all my masters, as he was not sending me final edits of any of my completed music despite having a thorough release plan and deadlines. It took going to our shared publisher to finally get this in motion. Over the course of a year, I worked towards buying out the ownership of my music.
For the next two years, I would randomly receive messages trying to recruit me to return as a client. He would make comments about my personal life that were slightly inappropriate (i.e., who I’m dating, how I spend my time, asking about my financial circumstances). I eventually started to post less and less about my personal life so as not to invite unwanted commentary and judgements. My intention was to ensure there was no animosity and no action could be taken on the assets I acquired. While also keeping the peace and sanity of my private life.
Here is another story about a female musician that wants to stay anonymous as well. Curtis hasn't given her money in two years and blocked her after she stated she wanted a refund due to the inconsistency. She is valid as well. Her story needs to be heard:
"2022, a close industry friend of mine recommended I work with Curtis Martin. Thought he’d be a good fit for me seeing as to how I’m just starting out. My friend put his phone on speaker & gave Curtis a call. Curtis readily jumped on the idea of working with me and gave us his rate. I didn’t anticipate a discount, but he happily said he’d give me a friend rate. He’d later throw this in my face as a reason to not refund me.
I paid him immediately.
He said he’d get started on my song. After months of excuses and false promises, he finally sent me a super basic beat that sounded like it was thrown together in 5 minutes. He probably knew I wouldn’t like it, so immediately he said “don’t worry I’ll send you another one tomorrow to pick from.” It never showed up for 2 years. I suggested he refund me if he was busy and we can work on it some other time when he wasn’t swamped. He told me to contact his manager and get in a “queue” because he’s “too busy” to handle his own clientele. So I tried. He tried to get out of refunding me saying he spent time working on the scratch idea and that he offered a discount to begin with.
I messaged. I called. His manager didn’t answer. Even my friend called his manager. Eventually he finally got through and talked to him, but still nothing happened. Curtis just wanted to forget it all and hoped I would just give up and go away. He’d get to keep my money and do none of the work. Seeing no resolution, I called Curtis and got immediately hung up on as soon as he heard my voice.
What Curtis committed is international fraud. It’s a federal crime.
I wonder, would he have done this if I wasn’t a female artist? I then started hearing about his harassment of women and I can’t say I’m surprised.
I’m so disappointed that someone like this exists in the industry. Sadly, it isn’t the first time it’s happened to me.
He needs to be held accountable."
Here are two screenshots of what other people said about Curtis
Now, there are other people who came forward about Curtis, but they wanted to tell me their stories in private and did not want it made public due to fear. Hearing some of these stories made me cry; No person should feel ashamed of themselves because Curtis decided to gaslight and manipulate them. These individuals are valid and their stories will come to light when they feel comfortable to talk about it. And I will be there to give them my full support.
I've had people tell me they are scared to come forward because they know how vindictive he is and that there are reasons why he moves state to state. Hinting that he will CONTINUE to run from issues. Not this time. The Concert Chronicles and I will continue to be the voice for those who don't have one yet. We will protect you guys. We will make sure men like this in the industry will never work with other clients and hurt more women. We want to make a change in this industry. We need to start exposing individuals abusing power because if we keep letting them get away with situations like this, they will never own up to their actions and will continue to hurt others. Everyone deserves to be heard. Your stories matter. Don't be afraid of a man who doesn't have his life together.
As stories keep coming in, I will update this article as more statements come to light! Musicians at this moment are creating statements for me, so they will be posted once I receive them!
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