GODS PLAN
2026 looking like the one
DRAKE breaks the record for streams by a rapper in a single year
- Thread starter Lil Bape the PostGod
- Start date
GODS PLAN
2026 looking like the one
iseetrolledpeople
A silent witness to all this trolling going on.
Metal Face
Superstar
kendrick lost
Uchiha God
Veteran
The Weeknd became a billionaire before him. Crazy
malbaker86
Gators
Where’s the album?
JulesMusic719
All Star
He didn't break the record, the stream farm did.
bright black
All Star
Hopefully that is good enough for him and his stans and he stop flooding the market with skips. Unless he aint allowed to stop because umg control him.
How ?
iseetrolledpeople
A silent witness to all this trolling going on.
Funny how the most streamed artist never did a stadium concert.
ItWasWritten
Superstar
His most streamed shyt not even rap that’s the funniest part
MoshpitMazi
Moshpit Gxng/ Anti Fash
The greatest rapper of all time and it’s not even close
Uchiha God
Veteran
According to sources, in simplified terms, the deal can be described as raising $1 billion for The Weeknd’s music assets, of which 75% was raised through debt, with Lyric Capital Partners holding a 25% equity stake in the artist catalog. The deal is said to encompass his master recordings, which sources say he owns in conjunction with his manager Wassim “Sal” Slaiby; and his publishing, which sources suggest he owns 75% of through a co-publishing stake and his writer share. (The remaining 25% of the publishing, which is not part of the Lyric Capital deal, is now owned by Chord Music Partners.)
The only other artist deals known to reach the $1 billion level are the $1.27 billion Queen received when it sold its masters to Sony and the $1.25 billion valuation of Michael Jackson’s recorded masters and music publishing catalogs in a deal that saw $625 million change hands when Sony acquired a 50% stake in those Jackson estate assets.
From a valuation standpoint, The Weeknd deal is indeed in a rarefied atmosphere. But what makes it even more unique is the large amount of leverage it carries. When buyers use debt to acquire music assets, if bank financing is involved, the equity-to-debt split maybe tops out at 55% debt. Meanwhile, an asset-backed securitization may typically lend against as much as 65% of a catalog’s valuation, with the asset owner retaining all the equity while receiving funding equivalent to 65% of the assets’ valuation. However, some sources say that this year, as investors get more comfortable with music assets, the upper limit on debt has slowly been rising.
On the other hand, deals with high amounts of leverage are usually done against a portfolio of assets composed of a number of artists and songwriters, or even against a company’s assets. At 75%, The Weeknd deal, by Billboard’s estimate, could be the most leveraged used in a deal for a single artist’s music assets. But it also means that The Weeknd and Slaiby still own 75% equity in the star’s recorded master and publishing assets and thus retain overall control of the assets.
While Lyric Capital, Artisan and a representative for The Weeknd’s camp didn’t respond to requests for comment, an unidentified representative for the artist told Variety, which first reported about the deal’s completion over the weekend, “From the beginning of the meeting, it was clear to all at Lyric that Abel would not sell his catalog. He wanted to be more innovative and creative in the way we established a partnership. To that end, through this venture, we constructed and launched a new business model with Abel and his iconic catalog whereby Abel and his team have the freedom to execute their creative vision with the entirety of his rights, both publishing and masters. This unique catalog deal sets a new standard for artist equity and control.”
Any way you look at it, the Lyric Capital Partners-led deal for The Weeknd’s assets is a landmark agreement for all parties. But due to the high amount of leverage of the deal, it also comes with risk. For one, deals like this usually include financial-ratio loan covenants that must be met during the life of the debt, or the loan can be considered in default. Also, if the assets don’t continue to perform at their current levels so they can generate the funds necessary to pay the debt service — or interest on the debt — and also ultimately repay the debt, the control The Weeknd sought to retain over his assets through this deal could be lost someday to the lenders.
Now we know why IceBurg ain't come out this year they was in the tent doing this
