John Legend becomes latest artist to sell music catalogue
John Legend has reportedly become the latest big name artist to sell the rights to their recording catalogue for a sizeable sum.
As per Bloomberg, KKR and BMG have both acquired a 50% stake in the R&B star’s catalogue. The fee is currently undisclosed.
The two companies have been busy buying up the back catalogue of several artists recently: both came together to purchase the publishing rights and back catalogue to ZZ Top last month, while BMG also recently acquired the back catalogues of Mick Fleetwood, Tina Turner, and Mötley Crüe.
The news about Legend’s back catalogue stems from a U.S. regulatory filing. It states that KKR and BMG now each own half of his rights for music recorded in the period between 2004 and 2021, which includes his 2004 debut album Get Lifted and iconic hits like 2013’s ‘All of Me’.
As Legend is still only 43 years old, he’s still at a relatively early stage of his career, which probably proved appealing to KKR and BMG who can capitalise on future releases and his continued presence in the public eye to drive streaming revenue.
Massive deals for music catalogues have become commonplace recently. The estate of David Bowie sold the singer’s publishing catalogue to Warner Chappell Music recently for the reported demos $250 million.
In December, Bruce Springsteen sold the masters of his full catalogue to Sony Music in what was thought to be the biggest deal in music ever for an individual artist’s entire body of work.
The New Jersey rocker’s entire catalogue, as well as the coinciding music publishing rights, transferred to Sony Music Publishing in a combined deal worth around $500 million. Springsteen’s catalogue is huge – it contains over 300 songs, 20 studio albums, 23 live albums, 7 EPs and lots more.
Check out ‘All of Me’ by John Legend:
This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.