Landon Cube, Lil Skies, + more - Publishing Royalties

Landon Cube released his first singles in 2016. A year later he sang on two Lil Skies records, "Red Roses" and "Nowadays." Both went 2× Platinum. Both reached the Billboard Hot 100. The catalog covers those two songs and 39 more, running from his 2016 debut through 2022.

Nine years on, the hits still pay every quarter, and with notable consistency. Set aside the back-payments for older streams, and income has landed between $1,990 and $2,610 in each of the last five quarters. "Red Roses" supplied $680 to $930 of that every time, "Nowadays" $555 to $760.

The money comes from streaming and almost nothing else: 93% of the last twelve months. Most of it, 73% of all income, is the per-stream payment owed to songwriters, at a rate set by a federal board rather than the services. Another 19% is public performance of those same streams. Spotify pays 36% of the trailing year, YouTube 24% and Apple Music 22%. Listening is 85% American, the rest spread across 81 other countries led by Australia, the U.K. and Canada. And all 41 songs earned money last year.

2024 brought a windfall. A federal board decided songwriters had been underpaid and raised the rate back to 2018. Distributions hit $66,100 that year, roughly $51,300 of it owed for streams that had already happened, and that money is still arriving: about 31% of the last twelve months is part of it. It also makes 2024 a poor yardstick because it was lifted twice: once by back payments and again by a true-up of current royalties at the new rate. Measured by when the streams actually happened, the second half of 2025 came in about 6% below the same months of 2024, and the two most recently reported months were both up.

Spotify's reporting points the same way. Over the last twelve months, "Red Roses" drew 24.8 million streams and "Nowadays" 20.9 million, each up 7%, with monthly listeners on both up 17%. Royalties lag streams by about 7 months, so most of that growth has not yet reached the statement. The concentration is the real thing to weigh: those two songs are 57% of the trailing year.

For an investor, that is the case. The unpredictable years are behind these songs; five steady quarters show what the catalog earns, and the listening behind it is growing rather than fading. Underwrite the $9,200 recurring line rather than the $13,300 headline, and you are buying a mature streaming income stream with two 2× Platinum singles holding it up, at a moment when the streams have moved ahead of the statements.

This catalog runs the length of one discography, from a 2016 debut to the records that went multi-Platinum.

Landon Cube released his first three singles, "Euphoria," "American Dream," and "Victims," in September 2016, and met Lil Skies through the Cufboys video channel. In 2017, he sang on "Red Roses" (June) and "Nowadays" (December), the two songs that broke Skies, the Pennsylvania rapper signed to Atlantic Records. Both debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week in January 2018, peaked at No. 69 and No. 55, and are certified 2× Platinum. Both sit on Life of a Dark Rose, Skies' major-label debut mixtape, which reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200, went Platinum, and features Landon Cube as the only guest artist. The two worked together again on "17," "Carrie," and "Play This at My Funeral."

His own releases fill out the rest. Self-released singles including "Beachtown," "Drive My Car" and "Round N Round" led to a Republic Records deal, the complete six-track Orange EP (June 2019), and thirteen of the fourteen tracks on Sapphire (December 2020). "Pretty" and "Eighties" both feature 24kGoldn, a 2020 XXL Freshman who went on to top the Billboard Hot 100.

Features close it out: "RIDING" with Yung Bans and YBN Nahmir, "Number1" with Yung Pinch, "Groceries" with Lil Keed, and "Celebration" with conner.

Earnings Note. Distributions in 2024 carried roughly $51,300 of retroactive mechanical catch-up on Spotify and Apple Music streams, about $38,800 of it in the second and third quarters. A federal rate board raised the rate streaming services pay songwriters and made it retroactive for 2018 through 2022, a one-time wave of back-payments. Any future catch-up payments are payable to the winner of this catalog.

Earnings Note. Administration of this catalog is transferring from Songtrust to Kobalt.