Influence Media Partners, the American music and rights company, founded by Lylette Pizarro in 2019, has acquired the publishing catalog of Grammy-award-winning rapper Future. They state that is was an “eight-figure” deal (somewhere between $10 million and $99 million), without disclosing the actual sum involved.
In comparison, Tina Turner only just last year in 2021 sold her entire publishing catalog for 50 million to BMG. Another point of comparison, Bruce Springsteen sold his catalog this year to Sony Music Group for a sum just north of $500 million.
We don't know if Future was paid somewhere below Tina's catalog, or north of it, indeed, more toward that 99 number.
Influence Media Partners since its founding in 2019, has formed a $750 million fund with investment juggernaut BlackRock and Warner Music Group.
“The impressive catalog marks Influence Media’s latest eight-figure acquisition and builds on the company’s commitment to investing in modern evergreens and cementing hip-hop and R&B’s high value in the music rights marketplace,”
Influence Media released a statement on Tuesday (September 20). The statement intimated that this deal includes the Atlanta rapper, singer and producer’s publishing catalog from 2004 to 2020, which spans 612 titles including his chart-topping hits with Drake such as Life Is Good and Jumpman, as well as with artists like Kendrick Lamar (King’s Dead), Rihanna (Selfish), and The Weeknd (Low Life). Also covered are Future’s own solo hits like Mask Off.
Future is pretty prolific, and works hard putting out nontop music. In the first 16 years of his career, Future has produced eight studio albums, four collaborative albums, one reissued album, one soundtrack, 16 mixtapes, four commercial mixtapes, and 114 singles. The acquisition of Future’s music catalog comes about seven months after Influence Media formed a $750 million fund with asset management giant BlackRock (not to be confused with Hipgnosis backer Blackstone) and Warner Music Group to go out and purchase up stakes in music copyrights.
In this deal Future gets his money up front, he does not have to wait for his catalog to continue to perform to enjoy those publishing dollars. He clearly intends to make more catalog. AND, he is a young man. There are still untold songs in him waiting to be written and released.
For Influence Media, how much more exploiting of this catalog will this company be able to do to recoup their money?????? Will Future's music always be popular? Will THIS ITERATION of mumble rap always be popular? How long does it take to recoup 8 figures? These are all good questions. If it has taken essentially 40 to 50 years for catalogs like Tina Turner's and Bruce Springsteen's to mature into the valuations they currently hold, is Future's valuation premature?
What we have learned from this deal is what Songs That Work has been saying nonstop. Having a catalog is key to being able to do these type of deals. You don't have to be a celeb. We have done six figure deals with clients on sound packs, not even songs. There are always platforms that want royalty free sounds as well as these other investment companies that want songs that generate huge royalties, for their publishing payouts. But if you are a working artist, for goodness sakes, keep writing, keep releasing and keep working your songs B2B (business to business- music sups, publishers, music to retail) AS WELL AS direct to consumer (fans). Just 10 to 15 years of consistent work will yield big dividends. The time is going to pass anyway, you might as well make it worthwhile!
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