Reservoir Acquires Tommy Boy Music
• Independent music-rights company Reservoir has acquired legendary independent Hip-Hop and Electronic record label Tommy Boy Music.
The deal comprises some 6,000+ masters, including such classics as Coolio‘s “Gangsta’s Paradise,” “Jump Around” by House of Pain and “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force.
As Variety notes, “Tommy Boy, founded in 1981 by executive Tom Silverman with a $5,000 loan from his parents, was one of the pioneering labels of the then-new hip-hop genre, and made its mark quickly with “Planet Rock,” Bronx DJ Afrika Bambaataa’s innovative fusion of Kraftwerk with a rapping and a quick, pinging beat from a Roland T-808 drum machine; the song became a staple of New York’s discos of the era.”
Tommy Boy also helped launch the careers of Hip-Hop icons such as Queen Latifah, De La Soul, Naughty By Nature, Digital Underground, and the Force MDs, among many others. It introduced EDM to mainstream audiences through releases by LFO, Coldcut, and 808 State, while helping to establish the Latin Freestyle and Latin Hip-Hop genres with releases by TKA, K7, and Information Society.
Tommy Boy Music also includes the catalogs of Amherst Records, Harlem Music, and Halwill Music, which hold masters and publishing rights for a diverse collection of ’70s Soul, Disco, and Jazz artists including The Stylistics, Van McCoy, and Glenn Medeiros, to name a few.
Tommy Boy Music now joins Chrysalis Records, augmenting Reservoir’s recorded music division. Reservoir will continue to market the catalog under the Tommy Boy label out of Reservoir’s New York City headquarters with A&R and Creative led by Reservoir EVP Faith Newman and international marketing and distribution driven by Reservoir’s Chrysalis Records team in London. News of the Tommy Boy acquisition follows the recent announcement that Reservoir has entered into an agreement with Roth CH Acquisition II Co., a special purpose acquisition company, taking the first step toward becoming a publicly traded company listed on the Nasdaq.
