Ultra Music Publishing Signed Nigeria’s Tejiri Akpoghene in 2022. A Sony Trademark Suit Forced It to Rename Itself Payday in 2025.

Status: confirmed publishing deal, confirmed name change, current administration under the new name not independently confirmed. In September 2022, Ultra Music Publishing and Coup D’Etat Music, a subsidiary of The Revels Group, signed Nigerian producer and songwriter Tejiri Akpoghene to a global co-publishing deal, his first. Less than three years later, a New York federal court forced Ultra’s publishing arm to stop using the word “Ultra” in its own name.

What was signed

Akpoghene had just co-written and co-produced “Wait For U,” the Future track featuring Drake and Tems that samples Tems’ “Higher,” when he signed the deal on 2 September 2022, according to his own law firm, ARS Counsel, which represented him and his management company Abovav Play. The Source, reporting the same week, named the counterparties as Ultra and Coup D’Etat Music Publishing, with Coup D’Etat operating under parent The Revels Group. Billboard’s trade coverage separately describes Coup D’Etat as a subsidiary of The Revels Group and names its founder and chief executive, Matt Geffen, as a signatory. No source reviewed discloses a fee, an advance or a royalty split. None states whether the deal covers Akpoghene’s back catalogue or future compositions only.

Five months later, Ultra Music Publishing folded the signing into a larger announcement. On 12 and 13 February 2023, Music Business Worldwide and Music Week reported that Ultra International Music Publishing had opened a creative hub in Lagos, appointing its London-based A&R manager Harold Serero to lead African operations. The same announcement named two further signings: Nigerian artist Amexin, who had been touring in support of Wizkid, joined the roster directly, and Los Angeles-based Sturdy signed a co-publishing deal for an act called Maesu, whose nationality is not established in any source checked. Founder Patrick Moxey was quoted framing Lagos as “a key focus for our creative team moving forward.” A three-day writing camp with Nigerian company Estlon Music produced a compilation, Sonic Rares, with contributors including Burna Boy’s regular producers Chopstix and Leriq.

The company that signed him no longer exists under that name

Ultra Music Publishing’s use of the word “Ultra” was already under legal challenge when it signed Akpoghene. Ultra Records, LLC, a Sony Music Entertainment label, filed a trademark suit against Ultra International Music Publishing, LLC on 11 November 2022, docketed in the Southern District of New York as case 1:22-cv-09667 and assigned to Judge Arun Subramanian. The court’s own corporate disclosure filing names Sony Music Entertainment and Sony Group Corporation as Ultra Records’ parents, a formal confirmation that this was Sony litigating against Moxey’s separately owned publishing company, not an internal dispute.

A jury heard the case in December 2024 and found that the publisher’s use of “Ultra” was likely to dilute Sony’s trademark, though not likely to cause confusion, and awarded no damages. On 25 February 2025, Judge Subramanian entered a permanent injunction, ordering the publisher to stop using “Ultra” within 180 days, while separately denying Sony’s request to seize the publisher’s profits, finding its publishing activities had not diverted business from Sony’s label. The company could keep referring to itself as “formerly known as Ultra International Music Publishing” on social media for a further 18 months.

On 16 April 2025, the company announced its new name: Payday Music Publishing, a nod to Payday Records, the hip-hop label Moxey founded in 1992 that released early Jay-Z records. Moxey told Music Week: “Nothing apart from the name changes, we will continue to represent our amazing songwriters and producers.” The change is independently confirmed by a regulatory filing rather than only by the company’s own statement: UK Companies House records show the publisher’s British subsidiary, incorporated on 17 August 2021 as Ultra Music Publishing UK Limited, was formally renamed Payday Music Publishing UK Limited on 23 May 2025, company number 13569313.

Ultra had also sued Sony back. On 29 November 2024, Ultra International Music Publishing filed a separate copyright complaint against Sony Music Entertainment, Ultra Records and AWAL in the same New York district, case 1:24-cv-09149, alleging unlicensed use of its compositions, a suit Sony characterised as retaliatory. Both the trademark case and the copyright case were closed together: notices of dismissal were filed on 5 December 2025, with Sony describing a “business resolution of all of their disputes.” Neither party disclosed terms. Moxey’s comment at the time named the new company directly: “With Payday Publishing, we value our songwriters and their copyrights.”

What is not established

No source reviewed states whether Akpoghene’s, Amexin’s or Maesu’s publishing agreements transferred automatically to Payday Music Publishing, were renegotiated, or lapsed. A rename of the corporate publisher is not the same event as a change in who holds a songwriter’s copyrights, and nothing in the trademark ruling touched contract ownership. But it is also not nothing: any credit line, royalty statement or public reference still reading “Ultra Music Publishing” for repertoire signed after 23 May 2025 would be describing a company that, per its own UK regulator, does not exist under that name. Payday’s own website does not publish a full writer roster, and no 2026 trade report naming Akpoghene, Amexin or the Lagos hub’s current status was found in reporting checked through this record’s publication date.

What this means for artists

Akpoghene’s case is a clean illustration of a risk that has nothing to do with an artist’s own conduct. A songwriter can sign a clean, well-represented publishing deal, as Akpoghene did with independent legal counsel at ARS Counsel, and still end up unable to say with certainty which company’s name is legally attached to that catalogue three years later, because the publisher’s own trademark, not the songwriter’s contract, was the thing in dispute. For any West African writer weighing a co-publishing offer from an independent, this is a reason to ask a specific question before signing: does the company’s right to use its own name rest on anything unresolved, and does the contract say what happens to administration and credit if the publisher’s name changes. Coup D’Etat Music, the other party to Akpoghene’s deal, appears unaffected: no source reviewed reports any change to its ownership, leadership or structure since 2022, and it remains listed as a subsidiary of The Revels Group under founder Matt Geffen.