WMG GETS BEHIND FEMALE-FOCUSED FUND

Influence Media Partners has struck an alliance with Warner Music Group and BlackRock Alternative Investors to create a music-rights platform focused on female artists and “modern evergreens.” They’ve already spent $300m of their war chest.

The combine's focus is on cultivating the “modern evergreen”—contemporary compositions that have strong potential for a multi-decade impact on pop culture—as well as investing in female artists and songwriters, with an emphasis on diversity.

Initial acquisitions include more than 20 modern evergreens with 1b+ streams apiece and comprise select copyrights from the catalogs of creators whose work spans multiple genres. These include Tainy, Jessie Reyez, Skyler Stonestreet and the production and songwriting group behind multiple Bruno Mars hits, The Stereotypes.

This partnership allows Influence Media to scale its investment in female creators, providing access to capital and licensing opportunities, as well as expand into music entrepreneurship. Influence Media’s previously announced acquisitions include select copyrights from Ali Tamposi and Julia Michaels, in partnership with the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System of Michigan, plus select copyrights from Jeff Bhasker, Shane McAnally and Ben Rector.

Influence Media and Warner Music will co-manage the copyrights acquired.

Temi Adeniji, WMG’s Managing Director of Warner Music South Africa and SVP, Strategy, Sub-Saharan Africa & Special Projects, who reps Warner in the deal, said, “Together we’ll bring new opportunities to some of the most talented artists and songwriters of this generation.”

“To paraphrase what my favorite music entrepreneur, Beyoncé, famously said, not enough women of color have had a seat at the table in the music industry, so we went ahead and chopped down the wood to build our own table,” said Influence Media Founder and Co-Managing Partner Lylette Pizarro McLean. “We’ve built a brilliant, savvy and diverse team that's also nimble enough to move at the speed of the culture. Our initial investments in modern evergreens represent a new generation of iconoclasts in music, both commercially and artistically.”

In late 2019, WMG started its $650m Tempo Music Investments fund with backing from Providence Equity Partners. Influence Media Partners was brought in to explore investment opportunities and drive catalog performance.