Alternative asset management company HarbourView Equity Partners announced Tuesday that it has acquired the publishing catalog of songwriting and production duo Andre Harris and Vidal Davis, better known as Dre & Vidal. Deal terms were not disclosed.
Dre & Vidal have written songs and produced for major artists including Jamie Foxx, Kanye West, Justin Bieber, Musiq Soulchild, Robin Thicke, Fantasia and Charlie Wilson. Some of their biggest Hot 100 hits include “Caught Up” by Usher, “Yo (Excuse Me Miss)” by Chris Brown, “Oh” by Ciara, and “The Way” by Jill Scott.
HarbourView, founded by Sherrese Clarke Soares, launched seven months ago and has acquired 30 catalogs so far. Most recently, the company purchased Latin superstar Luis Fonsi‘s catalog.
DLA Piper served as legal counsel to HarbourView in the transaction. Dre & Vidal were represented by the Law Office of Brad A. Rubens, LLC.
Vidal opened up to You Know I Got Soul in 2012 and explained how he and Dre became a duo, “Me and Andre knew each other just from the musician scene in Philly and two of our uncles are best friends. My uncle was the music director for Phyllis Hyman, for the Winans, and just various artists. Those two were together; Andre’s brother played the bass with Andre’s uncle for the Winans. We kinda linked up during rehearsals here and there, and then we just started hanging out when we were teens.”
And speaking on breaking outside of the neo-soul genre they had been known for, he added, “We had a point where we were just stagnated as just being neo-soul producers. We just wanted to let everybody know that it wasn’t the case. We wanted to step outside the box even though we had been doing a lot of stuff, people just didn’t know it. The first thing that kinda made everybody say “Oh man!” was ‘Oh’ for Ciara. After we did that song, it was like “Uh oh”.
