Britain's Got Talent star unleashes fiery rant about 'fake promises'

Grammy-nominated artist Kelli-Leigh has opened up about the challenges artists face in the music industry, revealing the impact of 'false promises' from labels. Reflecting on her own career, the former BGT star shared why she ultimately chose to embrace independence over traditional deals.

A BGT singer has revealed how artists get trapped in the music industry and has shared her own experience of "false promises" from labels. 

Kelli-Leigh Henry-Davila is an independent musician known for creating several hits, including providing the uncredited vocals for Duke Dumont's chart-topping track I Got U.

In an exclusive interview with The Mirror, Kelli-Leigh explained: "There's a lot of labels that'll make a lot of promises and they'll have a great meeting at the start and be like this is what we're gonna do, we're going to see it go forward."

She continued: "If they don't receive certain milestones quickly, they can unfortunately lose interest or decide their not going to fund the next thing, which can be frustrating especially if it's been something you've decided and discussed and it's the reason why you've signed to a label.

"A lot of artists experience that, there's a lot of artists that you'll hear about that get talked about being 'put on a shelf'. What that means is that the artist signed maybe a longer term deal, this is why some artists do prefer small single deals, because they can be free if it doesn't work out.

"The downside of some artists being signed to multiple deals is that if the label doesn't like their songs or doesn't think the song is good enough etcetera, they can keep not approving a record and that means the artist can't go anywhere or do anything which can be quite dejecting for artist to face.

"A lot of the time it's like you go in with the best intentions with the labels that you sign deals with and hope that their going to deliver on the things that they said, and they also hope that the artist they signed will deliver on what they said they'd do. So it's kind of like trying to trust each other."

Reflecting on her own experience with labels, Kelli-Leigh added: "I've definitely had situation's where I've been promised something and had really great discussions but they didn't land. And that's why I go back to releasing independently because that's the way I know I get to keep moving forward and my growing fan base want new music. I need to keep moving myself forward regardless."

Kelli-Leigh was a member of the group Band of Voices, which appeared on the 2013 series of Britain's Got Talent. The group impressed audiences with their a cappella rendition of Jessie J's Price Tag, earning them a spot in the live shows and advancing to the semi-finals. However, Kelli-Leigh chose to leave the group after just one performance. Since then, she has achieved international fame and earned multiple Grammy Award nominations.

Explaining how the group ended up on the show, Kelli-Leigh said: "We were doing five-part harmonies of pop songs as we suddenly had this opportunity presented to us to sing for BGT on a straight, live audition. We didn't have to do a pre audition because some of the producers had seen us. Our first audition is the performance that you can see on BGT."

It has gone on to become one of the show's most watched auditions. Speaking on the You Know My Voice podcast, Kelli-Leigh said: "The performance, I absolutely loved. It was the most amazing experience to go out there, it was really nerve wracking then the crowd just reacted and we got all the yeses."

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