Primary Wave Buys Majority Stake in “Return of the Mack” Singer Mark Morrison’s Catalog

Primary Wave Music Publishing recently purchased large stake of the ‘90s R&B singer Mark Morrison’s catalog. The purchase was a multi-million dollar deal that includes some of Morrison’s more iconic tracks such as “Return of the Mack,” “Crazy” and “Trippin’.”

“Return of the Mack,” Morrison’s breakthrough single, which was featured on Return of the Mack that quickly went platinum, became a Top-10 track in 1996. After that, his career really took off. He was an incredibly successful British R&B artist in the ‘90s and became the first black male solo artist to reach No. 1 during that time.

Over the last few months, Primary Wave has been purchasing catalogs from several artists. In early January, KT Tunstall announced that she would be selling 50 percent of her publishing catalog to the publishing company. By the end of the month, Primary Wave had then also bought out the rights to music by Jon Lind, which included some of his songs with other well-known artists.

Shortly after that, Primary Wave had acquired Sun Recordings. The 30 million dollar deal included master recordings for all music that was published under the recording company. Influential artists such as Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and more were among those included.

Aside from Primary Wave, many other music companies have also recently invested in catalogs. At the beginning of the year, BMG purchased royalty interest for more than 300 recordings that belonged to Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood. Hipgnosis invested in 100 percent of the catalog rights for Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham as well as Jimmy Iovine. On top of that, Hipgnosis also purchased 50 percent of Neil Young’s catalog.