MBW Reacts is a series of analytical commentaries from Music Business Worldwide written in response to major recent entertainment events or news stories. Only MBW+ subscribers have unlimited access to these articles. The below article originally appeared in Tim Ingham’s latest MBW+ Review email, issued exclusively to MBW+ subscribers last week.
Blame the vitamin D, but I’m in braggadocious mood.
So happy summer, and I told you so.
Back in December, I suggested to MBW+ subscribers that Drake’s motivation in his increasingly spiteful legal attack on Universal Music Group went beyond the lyrics of Not Like Us.
Instead, I reasoned, he might be sore about the fact that (a) He handed ownership of his lucrative first five albums to Ca$h Money/Young Money – in perpetuity – when he was a pup, and (b) Universal then acquired these masters via its purchase of Ca$h Money in 2020.
One theory: Drake could be using the legal system to lobby for some kind of discounted catalog buy-back from UMG, or at least an improved go-forward deal, via a public victim narrative. (A narrative that worked wonders for Taylor Swift, of course; more on her later.)
Today (August 15), the following quote cropped up in Sir Lucian Grainge’s personal submission to the court in Drake’s case – alongside a confirmation that UMG previously acquired certain Drake masters and the artist’s publishing catalog.
Noting that he has grown used to “personal attacks” of the kind found in Drake’s suit, Grainge said: “A frequent strategy of UMG’s litigation opponents is to attempt to waste my and UMG’s time and resources with discovery of the sort that Drake is seeking here — either in an attempt to gain media attention or in an effort to force some kind of commercial renegotiation or financial concessions.”
“A frequent strategy of UMG litigation opponents is discovery of the sort Drake is seeking here – either in an attempt to gain media attention or in an effort to force some kind of commercial renegotiation or financial concessions.”
Sir Lucian Grainge, Universal Music Group
My increasing suspicion is that Drake is less angry about Kendrick Lamar’s words than he is about a familiar bugbear for superstars of his vintage: signing a contract that handed forever-rights to a label in his younger years.
Most frustratingly for Drake, he gave away his masters to Young Money/Ca$h Money at a moment that was devastatingly close to today’s artist-empowered streaming environment.
Had Drake inked that contract just a few years later, the growing norm would have been for acts to keep their rights in any label deal, or at least have them returned after a set licensed period.
Some of Drake’s megastar contemporaries were also caught in this timing trap.
They include Taylor Swift – who recently forked out ~$400 million to buy back the masters to her six Big Machine albums – and Adele, whose first three LPs remain owned in perpetuity by XL/Beggars Group.
Like Drake, both Taylor and Adele have ensured they own the underlying masters to their albums released post-these deals.
Thinking about it, all three of these examples (Drake, Taylor, Adele) handed their forever-rights to independent labels (Ca$h Money, Big Machine, Beggars) within the almost-streaming epoch (2005-2010).
Those indie labels can justifiably claim it was a different industry then: a less predictable, sales-dominated business, fraught with higher risk on the part of the record company, with artists expected to give up more as a result.
This all adds grist to the mill of something I’ve been banging on about forever: the claim that anyone really represents ‘the independents’ anymore, or that indie artists and indie labels somehow ideologically stand side-by-side en masse, is deeply flawed.
I’ll say it again: there is no holistic ‘indies vs. majors’ dynamic at play in 2025.
To harden this point, perhaps ask Drake, Adele, and Taylor (three artists who own their modern rights, via licensing/services deals with ‘majors’) what they think about their ‘indie’ contracts from yesteryear.
I’d imagine their replies wouldn’t be fit for broadcast.
Anyway, if Drake is trying to use hurty words in legal documents, combined with his public profile, to try and force Universal to sell him back his catalog at a cut-rate, I doubt it’s working.
UMG and its reps have today called his suit “ridiculous”, “absurd”, and “farcical”, even suggesting it’s anchored in “some imagined secret conspiracy”.
Drake’s giving it a good go. But UMG, as a controversial lady once said, is not for turning.
The house doesn’t always win… sometimes it bides its time
Precisely because they haven’t signed in-perpetuity deals like Drake and Taylor once did, the indie artists of today can look forward to a relatively novel payday: selling their own masters catalog.
One keen purchaser of said masters? Financial players, whether private equity, pension funds, or family offices.
Their ranks include Dundee Partners, which has linked arms with UMG on the vehicle Chord Music Partners. Other examples: Bain Capital, which last month struck a similar arrangement with Warner Music Group, and Apollo, which has teamed with Sony on mega-money purchases.
MBW revealed this week that, since launching with UMG last year, Chord has raised over USD $2 billion in investable capital (like WMG/Bain, via a blend of equity deals plus debt), and expects to secure another $1 billion+ by October.
Sources close to Chord tell me that part of the reason it’s raising cash at such a clip is because it believes a ripening opportunity is upon us: modern artists regaining their master rights from licensing deals… and looking to sell them.
Welcome to the topsy-turvy music rights business of 2025, where indie artists, financial giants, and major music companies are all snuggled up together… as some of the world’s biggest stars seethe over deals they struck with indie labels (and, indeed, major labels) 15+ years ago.
Adding to the upside-down nature of things: artists no longer expect a huge advance check at the start of their career (in exchange for squandering lifetime ownership of their rights). These days, they get the big check at the end of the process.
They don’t have to watch their catalog be bought and sold like Taylor and Drake did – they get to sell it themselves.
Some argue that, by turning to outside capital, the majors have ceded valuable control to financiers like those behind Dundee/Apollo/Bain.
It’s a fair suggestion, especially factoring in potential limitations on M&A spending for public companies like WMG and UMG.
But look closer at the chessboard.
Universal still gets the market share it craves from Chord’s acquisitions via distribution and publishing administration arrangements. It also locks in co-ownership stakes.
And when Chord’s investors eventually want their own payday, guess who’ll likely have first dibs on buying it all back? Universal.
The house doesn’t always have to win right away. Sometimes, it can choose to rent out the casino.
Music Business Worldwide