News broke that the Fancy rapper, Iggy Azalea, has officially sold the rights to her music catalogue.
For the most part of 2022 Iggy Azalea has been igniting speculation of her return to music. She was on a successful sold-out tour with “305” rapper Pitbull and even described how that experience helped revive her love of music.
She discussed how her perspective and mentality shifted to being more self-serving and protective. Her direction, creation, and how she releases her music are going to be exactly what she wants without label intervention.
November 21st brought news that Iggy officially sold the rights to her older music when she was signed to major record labels. Iggy would ink a MAJOR 8-figure payment from the deal and would clarify the reasoning for it after being questioned by fans along with haters on Twitter.
“I sold a portion of my catalog to who I wanted, for an amount that means I don’t have to work another day in my life…”
She would confirm a fan’s statement which described that she wasn’t receiving any substantial payments from the songs she sold. It would be more fruitful for her to sell the rights to those select songs to receive an upfront lump sum.
Iggy also answered another fan’s question regarding the reasoning behind selling a portion of her catalogue. She responded, “I have a larger business I want to invest in.”
Iggy Azalea’s decision is just one that a growing collection of artists have made recently. Tina Turner made the decision back in 2021 to sell the rights to her music catalogue for over $50m. Lil Wayne sold his masters for over $100 million along with Young Money’s entire catalog. The publishing rights to David Bowie’s catalog were purchased for over $250 million.
The reasoning why artists or their estates sell their musical catalogs vary. They may just want an upfront payment appropriate to the catalog’s worth, they want a major company to manage the business affairs or they’re protecting the property from manipulation by other outside sources.
Much like Iggy Azalea, artists simply just want to reap the immediate reward from their past work for a more fruitful alternative in the future. The pandemics have given artists a scare with many having to halt touring, performance bookings, residencies, and earning money in ways that truly lined their pockets. For many, the best alternative is to sell portions of their catalogs for large sums.
Arguably the business aspect of these dealings can be more complicated, as most things aren’t black or white. But for many artists, this is the best decision for them. Granted, many are fighting to own the publishing and masters of their own songs.
