Emusica Buys Fania Holdings

The assets of Fania Records, which include what is widely regarded as tropical music's most venerable catalog, have been sold to Emusica Entertainment Group, Billboard has learned. According to sources familiar with the sale, the deal is worth about $10 million.

Representatives of Emusica, a Miami-based music company that counts indie label Protel Records among its holdings, confirmed the purchase of Fania's assets from the estate of Fania founder Jerry Masucci.

Emusica declined to disclose the purchase price.

The deal encompasses the entire catalog of Fania, as well as its publishing arm, FAF Publishing, which includes more than 1,000 albums, 3,000 compositions and approximately 10,000 master tracks.

Because Fania never had major distribution, myriad opportunities exist to repackage and resell its catalog. The label holds a legendary spot in the history of Latin music, and its catalog includes landmark recordings that have defined the genre.

The label was founded in 1963 by Masucci, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-born lawyer with a love for Latin music, and musician/bandleader Johnny Pacheco. Fania artists blended traditional Afro-Cuban styles with the drive and verve of American jazz, soul and R&B.

In 1968, Pacheco brought his acts together to create the Fania All-Stars, a superband that toured the world and issued recordings that ranged from daring and experimental to eminently commercial. To this day, the Fania All-Stars recordings are widely regarded as the benchmark for tropical music, comparable in status to Motown in American pop.

During the label's heyday in the 1970s, Fania's roster included virtually every luminary of the genre, among them Celia Cruz, Larry Harlow, Rubén Blades, Héctor Lavoe, Willie Colón and Eddie Palmieri.

Fania's power dwindled in the 1980s, and Masucci eventually shuttered the label. Prior to his death in 1997, he reopened it briefly under the name Nueva Fania.

Fania's relationships with its artists were not always cordial. Last year, Blades settled a longstanding suit against Fania and its publishing companies for copyright infringement and failure to pay recording and publishing royalties. Sony/ATV now administers his catalog.

Emusica representatives say they are still evaluating their purchase and will announce plans for Fania in the coming weeks. ••••