Foxborough's JoJo Spent Years Telling Fans Not to Stream Her Own First Albums. Now One Company Owns the Originals and the Re-Records

If you grew up around Boston in the mid-2000s, you remember "Leave (Get Out)" and "Too Little Too Late." What a lot of people don't know is that for years, the singer behind them, JoJo, who was raised in Foxborough, has been fighting over who controls those songs. This week, that fight got a strange kind of ending.

Seeker Music, an independent music company founded by songwriter Evan Bogart and backed by M&G Investments, has acquired both the original recordings and JoJo's 2018 re-recorded versions of her first two albums, JoJo and The High Road, Billboard and Music Week reported. Seeker's first release under the deal, out the same day as the announcement, is a 20th-anniversary deluxe edition of The High Road, first released in 2006, which includes a Spanish-language version of "Too Little Too Late," Billboard reported.

To understand why this matters, go back. JoJo, born Joanna Levesque, signed as a kid to Blackground Records, and label disputes kept her from releasing a third album for years, according to her Wikipedia biography. She got out, signed with Atlantic in 2014, and then did something few artists had tried at the time: in December 2018, she put out new versions of her first two albums with re-recorded vocals and slightly reworked production. Years before the idea became famous, she was re-recording her masters.

Then in September 2021, Blackground and Empire Distribution put the original albums back on streaming services. It took JoJo by surprise. She did not profit from those re-releases and told fans to stream her 2018 re-recordings instead, according to the same Wikipedia account, which cites contemporaneous reporting.

So for about five years, there have been two JoJo albums and two High Road albums on every streaming service, competing with each other, one that paid her and one she asked people to skip. Now, per Billboard, Seeker owns both versions of both records.

JoJo sounds at peace with it. "Deciding who to trust with such a personal and important part of my catalog wasn't something I took lightly," she said in a statement to Billboard. "So, when discussions started about Seeker acquiring the original recordings of JoJo and The High Road, my interest was piqued." She praised Bogart as "someone who truly understands artists because he is a creator himself."

Bogart was even more effusive. "JoJo is straight up incredible," he said. "Her fans have stood by her for more than 20 years, and you can hear why in every note."

What comes next is already mapped out. Seeker is working on archival music and visual releases built around her catalog, plus a new single that pairs her music with an electronic act the company has not named, Music Week reported. Seeker chief creative officer Steven Melrose said JoJo will keep the anniversary going next month with her sold-out 20 Years Unplugged tour. The company has also pushed her songs to new listeners before, Music Week reported, including Levi & Mario's reimagining "2 Little 2 Late" and Alexander Stewart's "The Way a Heart Breaks," which interpolates "Too Little Too Late." In the UK, "Leave (Get Out)" reached No. 2 in 2004, and "Too Little Too Late" went Top 5 in both the UK and U.S. two years later.

Seeker isn't new to her songs. The company already held publishing interests in "Too Little Too Late," through its acquisition of co-writer RuthAnne Cunningham's catalog, and in "Leave (Get Out)," through Soulshock & Karlin's catalog via Notting Hill Music, Billboard and Music Week reported. Music Week reported UK consumption of 629,836 units for "Leave (Get Out)" and 854,802 for "Too Little Too Late," citing the Official Charts Company. "Leave (Get Out)" reached No. 12 in the U.S. when she was 13.

Seeker has been buying aggressively. Billboard reports it has acquired shares in 19,000 copyrights since 2020, including songs by Beyoncé, Drake, Joan Jett and Lewis Capaldi, says its holdings are worth over $400 million, and raised $267 million in March through an asset-backed security arranged by M&G.

Now my opinion, clearly marked: this is the business side of R&B in one deal. An artist re-records her own songs to get out from under a label, the label puts the originals back up anyway, and a well-funded catalog buyer ends the war by owning both sides. Neither Billboard nor Music Week reported the price, who sold the original masters, or what share of future income JoJo keeps. Those are the numbers that tell you whether she won. The statements tell you she's happy, and after the last 20 years, she's earned that.

Questions still open: who held the original masters before Seeker, what JoJo's ongoing participation is, and whether Seeker will retire one version or keep both on streaming.