Sony Music France buys Lusafrica and Africa Nostra, the label and publisher holding Cesária Évora’s catalogue

Sony Music Entertainment France and Sony Music Publishing France announced on 2 July 2025 that they had acquired Lusafrica, the Paris record label founded in 1988 by José Da Silva, and Africa Nostra, the publishing house built alongside it. Sony puts the combined catalogue at more than 4,000 titles, including the complete recorded discography of the Cape Verdean singer Cesária Évora and every album by the Cuban singer Polo Montañez. No consideration was disclosed in the announcement, and none has been disclosed since in any document checked for this record.

What was acquired

This is an acquisition of two companies, not an assignment of a schedule of copyrights. Sony’s own wording is “l’acquisition de Lusafrica et d’Africa Nostra, un label et une maison d’édition historiques”: the acquisition of a label and a publishing house. Rights move because the companies move. There is no published list of individual masters or compositions, and the announcement does not itemise which copyrights sit in which entity.

The division of responsibility inside Sony is stated plainly. Sony Music France takes the recorded side, Lusafrica. Sony Music Publishing France takes the publishing side, Africa Nostra, whose editorial catalogue Sony says overlaps with close to three quarters of Lusafrica’s recorded works.

Artists named in the announcement as part of the catalogue: Cesária Évora and Lura of Cape Verde, Bonga of Angola, Boubacar Traoré of Mali, and Polo Montañez of Cuba. Titles named: “Petit Pays”, “Sodade”, “Bésame Mucho”, “Un Montón de Estrellas” and “Guitarra Mía”.

Corroboration in the French company register

The French national business register, queried through the government’s public company search interface on 22 August 2026, records the change at governance level for both entities.

• AFRICA NOSTRA, SIREN 418649422, a société par actions simplifiée registered in Paris. The single officer recorded is SONY MUSIC PUBLISHING (FRANCE) SAS, SIREN 414816249, holding the office of president. Register entry last updated 17 June 2026.
• LUSAFRICA, SIREN 424464014, a société anonyme registered in Paris. Officers recorded include SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT FRANCE SAS as a director, Marie-Anne Robert as president of the board and managing director, and Georges Ouaggini as a director. José Augusto Da Silva and Elodie Da Silva remain listed, as president of the board and managing director respectively. Register entry last updated 18 July 2026.

Both companies’ registered offices are now at 67-69 boulevard de Charonne in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, which the same register gives as the registered office of Sony Music Entertainment France and of Sony Music Publishing (France). The Lusafrica establishment at that address opens on 24 March 2026, the Africa Nostra one on 6 June 2026.

The register lists officers and directors. It does not publish shareholdings. It therefore corroborates that Sony entities now sit at the top of both companies’ governance. It does not, on its own, establish what percentage of either company’s share capital Sony holds, and no document checked discloses that percentage.

Amount

Not disclosed. The announcement contains no figure, no multiple, no earn-out and no term, and neither side has published one since. For scale only, and pre-dating the announcement, the register’s published 2024 accounts record turnover of EUR 794,186 and a net result of minus EUR 156,331 for Lusafrica, and turnover of zero with a net result of minus EUR 57,411 for Africa Nostra. A publishing company recording zero turnover is unusual; that line should be read as a filing artefact rather than as a statement about what the catalogue earns.

Contradictions left on the record

Sony dates Africa Nostra’s creation to 2000. The French register gives the legal entity a creation date of 25 April 1998. Both are recorded here rather than reconciled.

Sony dates Lusafrica’s founding to 1988. The register shows the current legal entity, SIREN 424464014, created on 24 September 1999, and a second, now-closed LUSAFRICA, SIREN 385043732, created on 2 April 1992. The 1988 date is the label’s founding, not the incorporation date of the company that was acquired.

MusicBrainz records a “label ownership” relationship attaching BMG France to Lusafrica, with no start date, no end date and no source. That conflicts with the founder’s own account of handing over a label he had held since 1988, and is most consistent with a distribution relationship entered into the database as ownership. It is noted here as a caution about that registry, not as a competing ownership claim.

What could not be established

The price, the percentage acquired, whether the Da Silva family retained any stake, whether any consideration was in Sony equity, and whether the acquisition included Lusafrica’s back-catalogue licences with third parties. The SACEM online repertoire, which would show the publisher of record on individual works, returned no usable interface to the queries attempted on 22 August 2026, so publisher-of-record data at work level has not been checked.

Analysis: why buying the company, not the catalogue, is the instrument here, and what it changes for artists.