In the last year many top flight celebrities have been selling their musical rights and publishing rights to record labels and rights holding companies.
Last year court filings revealed that Lil Wayne sold all of his masters, as well as Drake and Nicki Minaj‘s, for $100 million to Universal Music Group. Per Vibe Magazine.
Universal Music Group also dropped a cool $300 Million in the same period to purchase the entire songwriting catalog of Bob Dillon in what some are calling the biggest acquisition ever of a single act’s publishing rights, per New York Times.
Only last month BBC reported that Tina Turner sold the rights to her music catalogue for $50 million dollars, including hits like The Best and Nutbush City Limits, to music publishing company BMG. Billboard Magazine reported in January that Columbian Superstar Shakira had sold 100% of her music publishing rights to the Merk Mercuriadis owned Hipgnosis Songs Fund.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund has raised £1.052 billion to fund acquisitions since it was established in 2018 and within their current port folio are other top acts and producers like 50 cent, Timbaland, Rick James, RZA, LA Ried, Pusha T, Neil Young, and Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
The list of artist’s likeness and musical rights being acquired goes on and on but one artist whose estate, rights and publishing will not be for sale anytime soon is reggae legend Bob Marley’s, according to his son Rohan Marley in a recent interview.
Rohan Marley was a guest on the I am Athlete podcast, a weekly unscripted show by NFL greats: Brandon Marshall, Chad Johnson, Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder.
On the episode Rohan revealed gory details of his personal life and the early struggles the Marley family had to endure to secure a successful legacy for their father.
“Its not as easy as you think, when we were children, when my father passed away he didn’t have a will, so the government in Jamaica wanted to sell all his rights, so it was my sister Cedella and Mama Rita and she was the one to fight for it…we had no money, everything was frozen, my dad wasn’t making any money..All we had was our father’s rights, his likeness and his music and we did not sell that”. He reasoned.
“At no time we will sell that..People offered us 20 million dollars.” As he dismissed the thought passionately.
He recalled a time when Michael Jackson had the opportunity to help the family out of their struggles and instead Michael offered to buy the rights to Bob Marley’s Catalogue.
“We went to Michael( Jackson), and say ‘hey Micheal, could you help us?’ We need some money, we don’t have no money and they trying to take ours, Michael say ‘no, I’ll buy it’. MCA (also) wanted to buy it.” He said.
It’s not surprising that Jackson wanted to do business rather than help out the Marley family with a loan to straighten their business. He was notorious for buying music rights in the 1980s from even persons he considered his friends.
After becoming friends with Paul McCartney, Jackson paid 47 million dollars to purchase ATV, from Australian billionaire Robert Holmes a Court. “ATV had the rights to 251 Beatles songs, including “Hey Jude,” “Yesterday” and “Let It Be, as well as 4,000 other songs and a library of sound effects”. Per Biography.
McCartney recalled on an episode of David Letterman 2009 per Biography that, “I wrote [Jackson] a couple of letters and I said, Michael, don’t you think that after 30 years of being successful to this company you now own, don’t you think I could have a raise?” . Jackson’s response to his request was: “Oh Paul, that’s just business.”
“Chris Blackwell(Founder Of Island Records), the guy everybody don’t like, he loaned us(the family) the money”. Rohan gleefully stated.
“We were able to buy our father’s rights because when they sold it they gave the children first rights of refusal…We had (to raise the) money at the time to buy the publishing rights, name and likeness..we would never put our father’s likeness and rights in anybody’s hands, The Marley Coffee Owner said.
“Thats why today it’s us”, he concluded on the subject.
Rohan’s sentiments are in agreement with his older brother Ziggy Marley’s suasions. The Grammy winner told World Music Views it has not even crossed his mind to sell his own extensive musical catalogue much less his father’s musical rights.
“No sah, it’s not even a thing weh cross me mind, no man me a leave that for my children dem, maybe my grandchildren them will sell it.” He laughed.
He continued, “As me say is a bigger picture a gwan so we half I look beyond right now, haffi look ahead too..there has been offers, all (for) me father, people offer thing but we nah sell that so, no sah”.
Another topic Rohan discussed on the I am Athlete Podcast was how he got into playing American Football vs traditional football which was the sport of his father.
The former Ottawa Rough Riders player recalled that it was after being expelled from school in Jamaica three years after his father died, and he went to America. “They put me back in the 6th grade, at that time…they taught me how to play football..and I started to learn the game and I started to love it. I just want to be a part of the American movement. I knew if I played soccer I wouldn’t be able to help my family because I can’t get a scholarship from soccer, so I had to play football so I didn’t have to pressure my granny to put me through college”.
