Quincy Jones estate sells rights to his songs and blockbuster Michael Jackson album collaborations

The estate of the late composer, producer and bandleader Quincy Jones has signed a deal to sell large portions of his vast catalogue to HarbourView Equity Partners.

HarbourView announced Thursday that it had acquired 'select music and non-music assets' from the estate.

The investment firm will now receive royalties paid for Jones's compositions, but also the royalties he received as a producer on albums by Michael Jackson.

HarbourView has not disclosed how much it paid for Jones's catalogue. 

Jones, who died in November 2024 at 91, got his start as an in-demand jazz musician and film score composer, before becoming one of the highest-regarded producers of all time thanks to his collaborations with Jackson on a trio of blockbuster albums: Off The Wall (1979), Thriller (1982) and Bad (1987).

HarbourView's acquisition is the latest major catalogue sale from an iconic musician, after artists including Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Pink Floyd and Rod Stewart have sold off their songs.

Jones's daughter, the actress Rashida Jones, reacted to the sale in a statement on Thursday. 

'Our father was endlessly curious and always ahead of his time,' she said. 'Long before anyone talked about "multi-platform," he was already building bridges and connecting the dots across music, film, television, publishing, technology and culture, creating iconic juggernauts like Thriller, The Color Purple, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Vibe.

'What made him extraordinary was his ability to see around corners and bring together the right people, ideas, and sounds to create timeless work again and again,' the Parks And Recreation star continued. 'As his children, our responsibility is to protect not only the catalog, but the spirit and love behind it. HarbourView understands that legacy and has the vision and expertise to help ensure that future generations can feel the full scope of his everlasting impact.'

Jones's son, Quincy Jones III, added that the investment group 'was the clear partner for our family.'

'Our father didn’t just create hits, he built platforms that shaped culture across music, film, media, and technology,' Jones III said. 'He believed innovation was a creative tool and embraced it early, from serving on the board of MIT to pushing the boundaries of what storytelling could be. He had a deep passion for empowering future generations of creatives, and saw technology/innovation as a conduit if used ethically.'

In an Instagram post, Jones III added: 'I met [HarbourView founder and CEO Sherrese Clarke] a while back based on shared values, fast forward, so happy to have her and her incredible team as partners on something so near and dear to our family’s heart #Mashallah.' 

While speaking to Rolling Stone, HarbourView CEO Sherrese Clarke said Jones was an 'omnipresent force in creative spaces.' 

'We’ve got a number of iconic works in our portfolio, but adding someone like this to how we see our job as stewards and holders of canons of work for future generations, it felt like a blessing,' she said.

'We obviously have good economic terms [relative to the market]. We did all the things that we were supposed to do for the family, and they did right by us,' Clarke continued. 'But to me, it’s more an honor to have the responsibility of working with this family so closely to continue to exalt his legacy.' 

Clarke also noted that HarbourView had acquired several of the popular themes and scores Jones had written over his seven-decade career, including for Sanford & Son and In The Heat Of The Night.

'Growing up, the intro to Sanford and Son was iconic,' Clarke said as she hummed some of the saxophone line while speaking to Rolling Stone. 'I may not remember every episode, but I know that intro. It’s so wonderful to be a part of the cultural legacy.'

HarbourView also has acquired the catalogues of Kelly Clarkson, T-Pain, the late Fleetwood Mac singer and songwriter Christine McVie and Kane Brown, among others. 

Rolling Stone notes that Jones's catalogue is particularly vast, not just because of his numerous compositions and scores, but also because music he wrote or co-wrote has been widely sampled.

For example, HarbourView will now receive the royalties Jones got for his co-writing credit on Kanye West's Graduation cut Good Life, because it samples Michael Jackson's Thriller song P.Y.T., which Jones wrote with James Ingram. 

Similarly, the fund will receive royalties paid out to Jones for his credit on Ludacris's Number One Spot (2004), which liberally samples Jones's iconic composition Soul Bossa Nova, which is now best known for being used as the theme song for the Austin Powers films.

Notably, Clarke said that Michael Jackson's estate didn't play a role in the acquisition, despite Jones having played a pivotal role on three of his biggest albums.

'Obviously, we’re huge fans of those works,' she told Rolling Stone. 'So in some ways, it made it very attractive — in a lot of ways it made it very attractive. And didn’t make it any more complicated.' 

Jones reportedly earned around a 10 percent royalty for having produced Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad, which would be particularly lucrative considering that the three LPs have cumulatively sold more than 100 million copies. 

Jones's cut of the Jackson records normally wouldn't have been publicized, but it came to light due to a 2017 lawsuit over unpaid royalties.

Jones had sued Jackson's estate, claiming that he didn't receive his cut of reissues of Jackson's albums, the concert documentary This Is It and two Cirque du Soleil shows that had licensed Jackson's music, all of which were released after Jackson's death at 50 in June 2009.