Ciara: 'I pray my label will release me'

Two months after the release of her lowest charting album, Ciara is trying to escape her record label. The R&B singer claims she spent more than a hundred thousand dollars of her own money promoting Basic Instinct, only to have Jive Records let her down. "I've tried to be a team player with the label only to have compromised what I truly believed," she said. "A release [from her contract] would allow me to be creative with people who care and understand me as an artist."

Ciara revealed her feelings in an open letter to fans, titled My Time to Speak, posted to her Facebook page. Ciara denied rumours that she had been dropped by Jive, saying: "It is true that I have asked and I pray that my label will release me. I have had some great times and success with my label, but ... [it's] at that point where I feel we don't share the same views on who I am as an artist. The past two albums have been very frustrating for me ... I do understand that some labels are not financially supporting their artists and I have become one of them."

While Ciara said she has argued with Jive in the past, they particularly clashed during the drawn-out promotional campaign for Basic Instinct. Once one of America's top R&B stars, her fourth album peaked at No 44 on the Billboard charts – her first time outside of the top three. In the UK, where Ciara's previous three album were top 30 hits, Basic Instinct did not even enter the top 100. Ciara claimed she spent "tens of thousands" of dollars promoting her single, Gimmie Dat, plus "more than one hundred thousand dollars out of my pocket" shooting its video. "Still no label support," she wrote. "The radio [reps] told me my label didn't want the song played."

Now, a couple of hundred thousand dollars lighter, Ciara seems determined to begin the next chapter of her career. "I have so much of me as an artist I still want to give to the world," she wrote. "In a short time, I will be able to bring to you a new music energy and a visual excitement. Thank you so much for standing by me through the good, bad and the confusion."