Ja Rule reveals he’s actively shopping his catalog but has certain conditions for structuring a potential deal.
Rapper Ja Rule revealed to Bloomberg this week that he’s exploring the idea of selling his lucrative catalog — but explained that his thought process involves a different deal than a typical artist’s agreement.
Ja Rule says he hopes to sell his catalog in a reversion deal, allowing part of what’s sold to be returned to his family in the future.
“I’ve found out recently that my catalog is very lucrative,” says the rapper. “So I’ll be looking (to sell). I’ve really been talking about doing a reversion deal where I would probably give up half my catalog, and it would revert back to my family.”
“I think it’s kinda hard to put a number on the value,” he continues. “Usually, the value of the music starts to go down as the artist starts to go away. The value of the music starts to depreciate.”
Ja didn’t reveal a number he had in mind for his catalog, but he did predict that with the value of artists’ shares of streams increasing, so too would the value of their discographies.
“It’s kind of weird, but what’s happening now is we get less than a fraction of a cent for a stream, but that number is going up,” Ja Rule continued. “It’s going up to about 15 percent. So with that happening, I think a lot of these companies are realizing the money that’s out there.”
The rapper also acknowledged that his unique fusion of hip-hop and R&B significantly influenced phenomenally successful artists like Drake, which makes his catalog all the more enticing to potential buyers.
Ja Rule has eight Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 hits to his name — “Always On Time,” “Mesmerize,” “Livin’ It Up,” “Ain’t It Funny,” “Wonderful,” “Down 4 U,” “Put It On Me,” and “I’m Real” — with three tracks topping the Hot 100 and two No. 1 albums.