Singer-songwriter Jessie Villa was running an errand around 9 p.m. in August 2024 when an SUV hydroplaned through a large puddle and slammed into the back of her car.
The car was totaled. Villa suffered a concussion. Her best friend was getting married the next day, and the 32-year-old was supposed to sing at the wedding.
The crash came amid an exhausting stretch for the singer-songwriter who moved to Nashville at 20 to make music. After spending years writing music for sync licensing, she had cobbled together work at a cafe, as a personal assistant and house manager, babysitting, dog sitting and even unpacking and organizing homes. She still took music projects when she could.
Then she got pneumonia and spent much of the next two months sick.
"I had carried around this grief for a couple of years of just like, I just want to make things," she said. "And I feel like the things that I'm best at, I'm not doing."
Villa spent that fall thinking about what she wanted and praying for a way back into music. In January 2025, she read an email with a possible way out.
A company wanted to buy the master recording of one of her songs.
Duetti, a New York-based music company founded in 2022, buys, manages and markets catalogs from independent artists and songwriters, turning future royalty income into money upfront. The company has worked with more than 1,500 artists, roughly two-thirds of them in the U.S., and about 50 Nashville-based artists and songwriters so far, with plans to grow in Music City.
Its local roster includes Spencer Crandall, Parson James, Molly Grace, Dave Fenley and Ryder Johnson, among others. Duetti opened its first Nashville office in August on 16th Avenue South, bringing its local A&R, publishing and marketing teams together on Music Row.
Artists generally need at least six months of catalog history and roughly 500,000 streams a year to qualify. They also need to own the music Duetti is buying, which excludes songs created with artificial intelligence.
Villa had exactly the kind of track the company was looking for.
She had posted a haunting cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game"on TikTok in 2022. When the clip took off, and Villa released the recording, the song generated enough streaming income to pay her rent for three years. Having seen the potential of streaming royalties, Villa was skeptical when Duetti came calling. Other companies had approached her with similar propositions and she had walked away. Villa researched the tax implications, studied what the song might earn over time and repeatedly called the Duetti representative to discuss the deal. Negotiating as an independent artist is an art form all on its own.
"I talked to Duetti probably 10 times on the phone before we agreed on everything. But we came up with the same numbers," Villa said. "We ended up doing a master buyout with 50-50 royalty split. So I still get half the royalties every month."
The money allowed her to quit at least three side jobs.
The tradeoff facing musicians: Cash today or royalties tomorrow?
Years before singer-songwriter Brent Morgan sold his catalog, he had another high-stakes pitch to make.
Morgan was dating his high school girlfriend, Jae, when he sat down with her parents to ask for their blessing to marry her. He also had to explain how he planned to support their daughter: He wanted to pursue music rather than the safer career his business management degree offered.
Morgan had at least one, albeit feeble, proof point. He had already won $50,000 in a Petco jingle contest.
"I was so scared," Morgan said. "Luckily they believed in me, and I'd already kind of proven myself."
Since then the 38-year-old musician built a musical manor of originals and covers in unconventional ways, writing jingles for companies, playing restaurants and malls and later livestreaming every day for nearly 12 years. At one point, he said, livestreaming brought in $10,000 to $13,000 a month.
On Aug. 18, 2021, Morgan posted a cover of "Kiss the Girl" from "The Little Mermaid." It exploded overnight, racking up millions of views and bringing calls from record labels, radio stations and Disney.
One of his originals, "Gonna Be Okay," has amassed about 80 million Spotify streams.
Duetti noticed.
Morgan was vacationing with his wife in Asheville, North Carolina, when Duetti reached out on Instagram with a seven-figure offer and money to continue marketing his music. Intrigued but nervous, he slipped into the hotel's laundry room for a 90-minute call, then returned upstairs to tell his wife what had just happened.
"I was like, 'I think we might be a millionaire,'" Morgan said. "It's kind of crazy. And so just for songs that I put out to the world, it still blows my mind a little bit."
Morgan sought advice from friends in the music industry, signed the agreement and said the money landed in his account in about two weeks. As a father and an independent artist, that financial security was more appealing than hoping for superstardom. But making that decision is a personal choice. Duetti's offers are based on its analysts’ projections of what those royalties could generate over time, meaning the company is betting on the catalog’s long-term value.
What catalog sales reveal about the economics of independent music
A growing number of artists are grappling with that complex calculation: Is a large payment today worth giving up some or all of what a song could earn tomorrow?
Brianne Miller, a Nashville business manager with 26 years of experience, said she starts by looking at what a catalog is already earning and how long it would take an artist to make the amount being offered.
If a company offers $10,000 for a song that might take five or 10 years to generate that amount, Miller said, selling could make sense. If the song could make $10,000 in two years, the artist might be better off keeping it.
There are other factors as well. A song that appears to have reached its commercial ceiling can suddenly find a new audience, or an artist can have a breakthrough that sends listeners searching through an older catalog.
"You might have a client who did an early catalog sale and didn't get a whole lot of money out of it, never got a reversion of rights, and then two years later, they ended up having a hit that launches their career," Miller said. "Well, all of those old songs are now going to get a bit of a resurgence too, and they would probably be kicking themselves."
Morgan knew what he was surrendering. However, he prioritized years of financial freedom to create new music while knowing he had already provided for his family.
"It's just like a fresh start, you know, with a better situation," he said. "The deal was so good that it kind of took that pressure off because I could see the numbers. I could do the math and be like, even if I'm not making money off these songs, I'm set. I'm good for at least 10 to 15 years."
Morgan promptly upgraded his cameras and lighting, improved the space where he created content and stopped depending on weddings and gigs to supplement his income. He bought and renovated a house in Alabama. And he started building another catalog.
He returned to his lyricism, selling Duetti just one more song called "Friends We Won't Forget." The tune found an unexpected audience in South Africa. The rest of his new catalog, he said, he plans to keep.
Villa's clean slate looks different. At Duetti's new Nashville office, a dark blue house with white trim near the end of Music Row, she described what selling "Wicked Game" ultimately bought her: time.
With fewer side jobs consuming her days, she was available when a former boss asked her to fill an open spot at a sync camp. That led to more writing sessions, a sync deal and work toward a publishing deal.
While Morgan is finding success without traditional publishing houses and record labels by taking an entrepreneurial approach, Villa is investing time in her own professional networks in Music City. Both cases underscore that being able to focus on music, with worries about bills removed from the equation, can change everything. For emerging artists without generational wealth, selling catalogs early can offer a new path to security beyond record deals, although it comes at a cost they may only know in the future.
"I got to actually rest and recover," Villa said. "It gave me so much back, not just money, but fulfillment, my dreams, relationships, stuff I never even imagined could happen are now happening."
Bryan West is a music reporter at The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow him on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why some Nashville artists trade future royalties for cash | Exclusive
