\n\tIn October 2024, months after Blackstone won a bidding war with Concord to take Hipgnosis\u2019 troubled public royalties fund private, British rapper KSI\u2019s\u202f\u201cThick of It\u201d featuring Trippie Redd, which samples Red Hot Chili Peppers\u2019 \u201cSnow (Hey Oh),\u201d debuted at No. 84 on the\u202fBillboard\u202f Hot 100.\u202f<\/p>\n
\n\tKSI\u2019s best commercial mark to date, \u201cThick of It\u201d went on to be certified platinum in Australia and gold in the United States, and it was nominated for song of the year at the BRIT Awards in 2025. The song resulted from Recognition pitching writers on the Peppers\u2019 2006 hit at an Atlantic Records UK songwriting camp \u2014 one strategy from Recognition CEO Ben Katovsky<\/strong>\u2019s playbook for reintroducing songs from his company\u2019s portfolio by collaborating with musicians and industry partners.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n \t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n\t\u201cIn the last 12 months, we\u2019ve put out 60-odd interpolations, held 13 writing camps with our different publisher and label partners, and our interpolations have generated about 500 million streams,\u201d Katovsky says. \u201cThat gives you a sense of what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tKatovsky says it\u2019s been a transformative 18 months for the company that used to be Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF), whose in-house manager, Hipgnosis Song Management (HSM), was accused of accounting and financial projection missteps, leading to an eventual buyout. (Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis<\/strong> is no longer part of the picture.)<\/p>\n \n\tIn July 2024, Blackstone bought out the aggrieved shareholders of the publicly listed HSF and consolidated its 45,000-song catalog \u2014 which included compositions by Neil Young, Shakira, Journey\u202fand the\u202fChili Peppers, among others \u2014 with the private Hipgnosis fund Blackstone backed in 2021. Katovsky was named CEO in February 2024, and by the end of that year, HSM completed a $1.47 billion asset-backed securitization (ABS). In mid-2025, after consolidating the many Hipgnosis companies under the single name Recognition, Katovsky raised another $372 million through an ABS, this time with an A rating from both Fitch and S&P \u2014 a mark of Wall Street\u2019s approval. It worked: The ABS, which reaped three times the demand it expected, landed Recognition 16 new investors, including eight who are new to music.<\/p>\n \n\tThe collection of cultural treasures Mercuriadis amassed still attracts attention. Recognition\u2019s move in June to sell subsidiary Hipgnosis Songs Group, which housed Big Deal Music and its administration business, to Sony Music Group prompted some to speculate Recognition was more keen to sell than acquire assets. (Before going private and rebranding as Recognition, Hipgnosis Songs Fund also sold off 20,000 songs for around $23 million.)<\/p>\n\n
![\"Recognition\"](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Recognition-logo-2025-Hipgnosis-rebrand-billboard-1548.jpg?w=237&h=147&crop=1\"){kind=logo}
<\/p><\/div>\n![\"Billboard](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/2HpFicp.png\")