Hipgnosis has been on an acquisition spree after floating on the London Stock Exchange last year, having bought interest in catalogs from\u00a0Chic co-founder<\/a>\u00a0Bernard Edwards,\u00a0songwriter Jason Boyd\u00a0<\/a>(aka Poo Bear), British songwriting and\u00a0music production team TMS,\u00a0<\/a>and a 75% stake in the catalog of\u00a0The-Dream<\/a>\u00a0(who is also an\u00a0Advisory Board Member).<\/p>\n The first of the three new acquisitions is the BMG music publishing catalog of\u00a0singer-songwriter, arranger, producer, vocalist and rapper Johnta Austin\u2019s\u00a0of which Hipgnosis now owns 100% interest in.<\/p>\n The company has also acquired 100% of Austin’s share of performance income collected and distributed by the Performance Rights ASCAP.<\/p>\n Austin was awarded two Grammy Awards in 2006 and 2007, the first for his work on the song We Belong Together performed by Mariah Carey which stayed at No.1 for 14 weeks, becoming the second longest running No.1 single in US chart history.<\/p>\n His second Grammy was for Be Without You performed by Mary J Blige.<\/p>\n The catalog comprises 249 songs, and also includes hit singles such as Janet Jackson\u2019s Call On Me featuring Nelly, Chris Brown\u2019s Yo and Bryson Taylor\u2019s Don\u2019t.<\/p>\n Hipgnosis has also acquired 100% of\u00a0record producer, singer and songwriter Sean Garrett\u2019s interest in his Universal Music Publishing catalog\u00a0(588 songs) as well as 100% of his writer share of performance income, collected and distributed by ASCAP and BMI.<\/p>\n Garrett is responsible for a series of chart-topping compositions, most notably Usher’s Yeah! which was No.1 across 15 countries.<\/p>\n He’s also responsible for the 2006 hit Check on It by Beyonc\u00e9, which was No.1 in the US for five consecutive weeks.<\/p>\n Sean has written for a variety of artists, including Ciara for her single Goodies, a No.1 in both the US and the UK. He also co-wrote the Pussycat Dolls’ hit single Buttons, Britney Spears’ Toy Soldier, Nicki Minaj\u2019s first single Massive Attack and Mario\u2019s Break Up.<\/p>\n Rounding out the new acquisitions is 100% of Rico Love\u2019s writer share of performance income collected and distributed by SESAC (Society of European Stage Authors and Composers).<\/p>\n Love is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer who has written and produced hit songs including Sweet Dreams for Beyonc\u00e9 and Throwback for Usher amongst others.<\/p>\n The catalog comprises 245 songs, which includes Without You by David Guetta, which was co-written by Giorgio Tuinfort, and is included in the catalog, which Hipgnosis acquired<\/a> the 100% copyright interest in December 2018.<\/p>\n “From Mary J Blige to Usher to Beyonc\u00e9, these songs have played a critical role in the evolution of R&B and pop music as we know it today!\u201d<\/p>\n Merck Mercuriadis<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Merck Mercuriadis said:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m very happy to be welcoming Johnta, Sean and Rico into the Hipgnosis family. They have each individually written standout songs that define the culture.<\/p>\n “From Mary J Blige to Usher to Beyonc\u00e9, these songs have played a critical role in the evolution of R&B and pop music as we know it today!\u201d<\/p>\n “When we talked what songwriters and songs should sit alongside the great Grammy award winners already in the catalogue we were very focused on Johnta, Sean and Rico.\u201d<\/p>\n The-Dream<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Advisory Board Member The-Dream, added:\u00a0\u201cI would like to welcome three genius level songwriters to our family. When we talked what songwriters and songs should sit alongside the great Grammy award winners already in the catalogue we were very focused on Johnta, Sean and Rico.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Catalogs include songs that have been nominated for 11 Grammy Awards and have won two<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":52698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[5402],"class_list":["post-60589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-hipgnosis-songs-fund"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/files\/2018\/11\/Merck-Mercuriadis-e1544184839937-80x45.jpg\")
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