Indie publisher Imagem Music has entered into a new joint venture with producer and writer management firm Karma Artists.
Effective immediately, the new agreement will see Imagem provide full administrative and creative services for the new JV roster on a global basis. The deal covers all future copyrights together with administration of the catalogues acquired by Karma Songs, which include works recorded by Andrea Bocelli, Diana Ross, Bananarama, The Saturdays and the ‘90s Top 3 hit Escaping by Dina Carroll.
Karma Songs was launched by former Polydor A&R Jordan Jay and ASCAP exec Ross Gautreau together with veteran songwriter and producer Barry Blue to offer a creative publishing house in tandem with Karma Artists - a multi-faceted entertainment agency launched in 2012 by Jay and Gautreau, providing A&R and brand consultancy, as well as producer and songwriter management.
Kim Frankiewicz, MD of Imagem, said: “Jordan and Ross have a fantastic ear for next generation writers and producers and their success in song pitching and securing cuts for their clients is second to none. This is a great compliment to our A&R frontier at Imagem and look forward to working together across a range of songwriters and producers”.
Jay, director of Karma Artists, added: “It feels like a natural progression for us to further our venture into the publishing world now, we have worked with pretty much every publishing company across our roster of songwriters so have been able to see the benefits and negatives of the majors - this has enabled us to plan exactly how we would like to do things and Kim and her team share our vision. The culture and independence of Imagem is something which feels like a natural fit for Karma Songs”.
Gautreau, A&R director of Karma Artists, commented: “We’ve built a fantastic roster of writers & producers over the past four years and manage two very exciting artists in Joel Baker and Little Giants, this together with our A&R Consultancy work with Universal and Syco on Xfactor has enabled us to build a very exciting and diverse music company. A fully servicing publishing division was something that Barry, Jordan and myself felt we were missing and something we have always been keen to build, but this was always going to be dependent on finding a like-minded, forward thinking partner like we have in Imagem”.
Pictured (left to right) Kim Frankiewicz (Imagem), Anna Carpenter (Imagem), Barry Blue (Karma Artists), Ross Gautreau (Karma Artists), Jordan Jay (Karma Artists), Chimene Mantori (Imagem)
