Kobalt Music announced today via Twitter that they have signed Zayn Malik in a deal covering music publishing and neighboring rights.
Extremely excited to welcome one of the hottest stars in music today to the Kobalt family. Welcome, @zaynmalik! pic.twitter.com/F0vcDta7Ts
— Kobalt (@kobalt) June 21, 2016
This is a huge step for Zayn. He is moving away from the traditional major publishing companies and joining an independent music publisher. At Kobalt Zayn will have more control over copyright ownership of songs he has written and recorded, which is definitely a fair deal.
As Kobalt also announced on Twitter the deal includes Zayn’s massively successful debut album, Mind of Mine, which made Zayn the first UK male artist to debut at No.1 in the UK and the US. Yikes.
Zayn’s former manager, Sarah Stennett of First Access Entertainment, reckons that “Kobalt is a great business partner for Zayn”. She said “He made a decision based upon his desire to retain ownership of the copyrights in the songs he has written. He feels that Kobalt is best placed to administer those copyrights globally.” So that all sounds pretty positive.
Kobalt Music Publishing is the largest independent music publisher in the world. They aim to eliminate obstacles for artists and writers in the often highly complicated music industry. The publishing, label and neighboring rights divisions offer “a modern alternative to the traditional music business model” and will only empower Zayn with more ownership and control over his own content.
Zayn will be joining an 8,000-strong roster of artists and songwriters, including a host of huge industry names such as Alt-J, Bon Iver, Gotye, Kelly Clarkson, LMFAO, Paul McCartney and Skrillex, as well as thousands of lesser-known artists.
What do you make of that then? Are you happy that Zayn has signed with Kobalt? We’re certainly proud of him for taking even more control over his career. Tweet us @CelebMix to let us know.