RZA Invests In New Tech Company AYO Music Group To Track Down Unpaid Royalties

RZA is backing a company chasing royalty checks that music creators should already be collecting.

The Wu-Tang Clan founder has invested in AYO Music Group, joining a business focused on finding income lost in copyright paperwork.

AYO announced the investment, with RZA describing payment problems he has watched throughout his career.

The names behind that mission already have plenty of Hip-Hop history. Disturbing Tha Peace co-founders Chaka Zulu and Jeff Dixon are also among the investors, alongside family office CIH Group.

Co-founder Deborah Mannis-Gardner started DMG Clearances in 1996 and helped clear samples for Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé, while Pär Almqvist co-founded sample-licensing platform Tracklib.

Mannis-Gardner also helped prepare De La Soul’s catalog for its long-awaited streaming arrival in 2023. At AYO, the work reaches publishing, neighboring rights and recordings worldwide, giving songwriters, performers and recording owners several places to look for missing money.

“I have spent thirty years making sure the people who created the music got paid for it, and I have watched a lot of money disappear into paperwork along the way. Deborah and Pär have built something that actually finds it. That is a mission I want to be part of,” said RZA.

One of its tools, Gapfinder, searches for registration problems that can interfere with royalty collection.

AYO says its database covers more than 57 million compositions and 210 million registrations across 300 international performing rights organizations, tracking duplicate entries, missing registrations and conflicting identifiers.

The service offers one-off checks of a writer or catalog, as well as subscriptions for ongoing access to its data.

That makes the investment another chapter in RZA’s dealings with the business behind the records.

Wu-Tang Productions previously struck a global publishing administration agreement with Downtown Music covering the group’s interests in its back catalog and selected individual members’ work.

That agreement included material from Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers, Wu-Tang Forever, The W and Iron Flag.

AYO remains invitation-only, with its business built around managing existing rights and collecting money those rights generate.

Ewing Athletics owner David Goldberg was AYO’s first investor when the company was founded.