Independent publishing house Rimas Publishing has become one of the biggest contributors to Latin music over the last decade. The industry giant represents the copyrights catalog of over 150 artists, songwriters and producers from Latin America and the United States, and is most notably home to Bad Bunny, the highest-selling Spanish-language artist in the world.
But when it started in 2014, the umbrella of Rimas Entertainment was a boutique label and digital distribution company with multi-platinum reggaeton duo Jowell y Randy as its first artist (they remain on the roster today). The company has gone on to launch several lucrative divisions across entertainment: Habibi, the management teams behind Karol G and Grupo Frontera, in addition to athlete management company Rimas Sports, and Rimas Publishing.
Related Stories
Responsible for distributing and licensing the works of such acts as Grammy-winning producers Súbelo NEO, and breakout stars Cris MJ, Eladio Carrión and Mora, among others, the publisher agreed to separate from its parent company in 2023. Already touting offices in the U.S. (Miami), Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela, Rimas Publishing unveiled its new headquarters in March in the Milla de Oro financial district in San Juan, Puerto Rico, or “Rimas’ home base,” says General manager Emilio Morales.
Popular on Variety
“From the moment I joined this company almost five years ago, the goal was to make it its own versatile and diverse powerhouse of all genres and in all territories,” he continues. “I was told, ‘We have Bad Bunny, who generates a great amount of our revenue, and now the goal is to expand,’ and from the beginning, there was a clear sense of mutual trust from all of the senior executives at these companies that has allowed us to really maximize.”
Morales continues to fulfill his commitment, and in recent months, has helped spearhead partnerships with boutique labels and music collectives including Wild Company, a base for developing Chilean artists, and Made in Memphis Entertainment, a general market and full-service entertainment group based in Tennessee.
Rimas Publishing has also expanded with its own legal team, and Morales tells Variety they are close to finalizing their first major catalog sale. “Catalog acquisitions is a department of our company that is still very new,” he explains. “But, we’re a much more mature company today, and things are changing and elevating. We’re being approached by buyers and different clients. I’m looking forward to closing the deal we’re in conversations about now, although I can’t say much at the moment other than it’s… big.”
Below, Morales plots the future of its rapidly growing family of artists and executives, and demystifies the efforts of keeping independent creators in control and profiting off their songs.
With the company now being 100 percent in-house, how different are your operations compared to the corporate groups you’re competing with?
You have to give credit where credit is due, and without the majors creating the infrastructure that allowed the monetization of YouTube, I don’t think the indie market could stand on its own as much as it does today. Machete Music needed Universal Music Group to become what it became. But we don’t deal so much with the bureaucracies and some of the obstacles of a major because we’re all in constant communication.
Our technology and deals favor the artists, and we are extremely selective when it comes to signing — we still have that boutique feel, even though we’re far past that.
What has been your approach to ensuring your producers and songwriters are getting fair compensation in a streaming market?
This is a very hot topic for me, because I used to be a songwriter myself, and I take their rights very personally. And I have said this a few times, but… it should be illegal how little songwriters are paid for streaming. I agree completely with the postulates of the National Music Publishers Association and [President] David Israelite, I am aligned with the fact that it is totally unfair and the payouts should and can be bigger.
Our whole ecosystem as a company is dependent on these royalty payouts, my consultants, my clients, everyone. We get so little out of these platforms that it wouldn’t be a sustainable business if we didn’t have very strict financial control the way we do here. It’s very difficult. The payout margin is so little and it’s especially obvious how unfair of a playing field it is because we meet these 18-year-old, 19-year-old kids out of Chile, for example, who are producing tens of thousands of streams daily and are huge stars because of it. It doesn’t make any sense… We are fighting these rates politically, in alignment with the right associations, trade entities, NMPA, and we are part of the Association of Independent Music Publishers. All we can do is lobby and invest, and mobilize our network, and that’s a lot of what I do, really.
Where do you see opportunity for songwriters and producers to monetize further?
A lot of it comes from empowering them through new initiatives, and we’re looking to create opportunity for them in a lot of non-traditional ways. We are bringing in more sync and licensing opportunities in the TV advertising world, the same goes for the virtual reality space.
What’s the company’s stance on artificial intelligence?
At this point, we’ve enjoyed long-standing agreements with some of the best technology companies from London, and all over the world to gain control over AI creations and recognitions. I don’t see AI as something that’s going to kill the music industry or the music creator, but that’s only if we continue to regulate it. We use AI to solve problems, to create solutions, to support the creators. But any technology used wrongly has proven to be harmful to the human race, so I do hope people wake up to what and how they’re doing what they’re doing.
Where do you believe the company will grow the most in its next chapter?
In the next few months, we will be announcing a lot of new signings and expansions in our offices in Miami, Colombia and Mexico. It is the second year we are totally independent, and we’re incredibly active. The goal now is to get the word out on the good work we’re doing for some of the best artists, not only in LATAM, but across the general market.
