>>21780391You don't need a label, but there's certain monetary advantages to having a label.
With a label, the label in question will take over the marketing and PR department, they will foot the bill for recording and help make studio appointments (via an allocated budget that the recording artist can usually pocket the difference on, with an added monetary incentives after release that are sometimes dependent in size on the products success) and such as well as music video recordings. It will also help on the logistical side of distribution, will help with administrative tasks, will help you book venues and plan events, etc. etc.
Of course, there are huge drawbacks to all of this as well.
If you were to attain the same level of fame as an independent artist, you would of course receive a far larger part of the eventual monetary success your music makes, as well as whatever merch sales you have.
You give up most of your freedom as well. If a label just doesn't want to release your music in spite of there being a finished project, be it to not coincide with another release or because they want to simply sit on you and not allocate a budget to market you or whatever, they can simply refuse to release your music. And since it is technically their possession, they are free to do so. The master recordings are as well. Even if you should break away from them, reclaiming anything will be an extreme legal struggle afterwards.
Then you have to remember that these labels do not give a fucking shit about you, they care about money. They will gouge you, they will bleed you dry, they will make sure that you have as small of a slice of the pie as possible while having you still in a place where you want to create music.
I just hope, for her sake, that Mori was smart enough to have a lawyer read over the contract and to have it be one with a clearly defined end that is also clearly only pertaining to music made as this persona and clearly delineated and acknowledged by both parties as part of a project pertaining to the contract.