During Super Bowl LVI, rap legend Dr. Dre was tasked with putting on an awe-inspiring halftime show, and he accepted the challenge. Electrifying So-Fi Stadium, he brought on fellow musicians and artists Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, and Eminem.
For weeks, Dre had fans talking about the performance’s impact and what it meant for Black culture and the rap genre. Fast forward to weeks before Super Bowl LVII, Dr. Dre is not performing again, but he is still making headlines.
According to Variety, Dr. Dre is selling a portion of his music income streams and additional assets in a deal worth up to $250 million.
The assets that are a part of this deal are said to bring in an estimated $10 million per year, divided up in separate transactions to Universal Music Group and Shamrock Holdings.
The rumor is that Dr. Dre’s attorney, Peter Paterno, has shopped the deal around for several weeks, and it is now close to being set in stone.
The outlet reports that while Paterno, of King, Holmes, Paterno & Soriano, believes the agreement may not reach a final amount of $250 million, it will come in well above the $200 million mark.
The assets in the pending deal would include royalties from two of Dre’s solo albums and his share of N.W.A royalties and producer royalties. Additional assets would also include “the writer’s share of his song catalog where he doesn’t own publishing, which may include songs from his 1993 blockbuster album ‘The Chronic.'”
Initially reported by Billboard, the above asset portion of the deal would be between 75 percent to 90 percent of the package’s revenue and will “likely” go to Shamrock, with the remaining 10 percent to 25 percent being acquired by Universal.
Dre’s legendary “The Chronic” is on set to return to his ownership from Death Row Records. If the deal is successful, the speculation is that the transfer will be a part of the Universal piece of the acquisition along with Dre’s portion of the Aftermath/Interscope venture with Top Dawg, the label responsible for Kendrick Lamar’s musical releases. The deal would not include, however, any ownership stake in Aftermath, which Dre co-owns alongside UMG’s Interscope Records.
No official details or reasoning behind the sale have been released to the public, as of this writing.
