Tekno Joined emPawa Africa as an Investor in May 2024. The UK Company Carrying His New Releases Shows No Ownership Change Through Its Most Recent Filing.

In May 2024, Mr Eazi’s emPawa Africa announced that Tekno, the Nigerian singer and producer, had joined the company as an investor and partner, with his own imprint, Cartel Music, entering a joint venture to release his music through emPawa. The distribution side of that deal is confirmed: three Tekno singles released between May 2024 and June 2025 all carry an emPawa Africa phonogram credit. The investment side is not confirmed. UK Companies House filings for the company whose name sits on those same credits show no change of shareholder or person with significant control between its incorporation in January 2020 and its most recent confirmation statement, filed in December 2025, a year and a half after Tekno was announced as a shareholder.

What was announced

The announcement went out on 22 and 23 May 2024, covered independently by Music In Africa and Digital Music News within a day of each other, and republished in full by the press-release wire Record of the Day. All three describe the same structure: Tekno’s Cartel Music imprint would release new music through emPawa Africa, and Tekno himself would become a shareholder in emPawa Africa “during its next capital call round,” joining the Grammy-winning producer Michaël Brun among the company’s investors.

Mr Eazi framed it as a shift in how emPawa works with artists. “This phase will see us partnering with African artists at different stages of their career who want to maintain financial and creative freedom, yet move from talent for hire to equity participation,” he said, calling it “a first-of-its-kind deal for Afrobeats.” Tekno called the alliance “a gamechanger for the African music industry and a beacon of opportunity for artists.”

The first release under the arrangement was “Wayo,” out 24 May 2024, written and produced by Tekno and ShugaVybz. Two further singles followed on the same basis: “Alhaji” in May 2025 and “Powerbank” in June 2025.

The part that checks out: releases carry emPawa’s credit

Phonogram credits, the (P) line a distributor or rights holder attaches to a sound recording, are one of the few pieces of rights information that show up directly on a release rather than in a press statement. Checked directly on Apple Music and Audiomack for this record, all three post-2024 Tekno singles name an emPawa Africa entity as rights holder: “Wayo” reads “(P) 2024 emPawa Africa Limited,” while “Alhaji” and “Powerbank” both read “(P) 2025 emPawa Africa Music Services Limited.” Audiomack’s artist page separately lists Tekno’s label as Cartel, consistent with a joint venture in which Cartel is the imprint and emPawa is the entity actually delivering the recordings to DSPs. On the distribution and release side of the 2024 announcement, thirteen months of consistent phonogram credits across three singles is about as clean a confirmation as this kind of deal produces.

The part that does not: no shareholder change on record

The entity named on those credits is a real, identifiable company. UK Companies House lists it as company number 12412587, incorporated on 20 January 2020 under the name emPawa Africa Limited and renamed emPawa Africa Music Services Limited on 10 November 2021, more than two and a half years before the Tekno deal was announced. That timing means the “emPawa Africa Limited” credit on 2024’s “Wayo” was already an out-of-date legal name by the time the single came out; the 2025 releases use the company’s correct current name.

The company’s persons-with-significant-control register lists exactly one active entry: Oluwatosin Oluwole Ajibade, Mr Eazi’s legal name, holding 75 per cent or more of shares and voting rights and the right to appoint or remove directors, notified on the date of incorporation and never updated since. No second PSC entry for Tekno, Cartel Music, Michaël Brun or any other investor appears. The company’s filing history shows confirmation statements made on 2 December 2024 and 2 December 2025, the two annual snapshots that would be the first places a new shareholder becomes visible on the public record, and both are filed as carrying no updates to shareholders or persons with significant control.

That is not proof Tekno holds no stake in emPawa Africa. UK company law only requires a PSC filing for a holding of 25 per cent or more, so a smaller stake would not necessarily show up here at all. The equity could also sit in a different holding vehicle altogether, in a Nigerian entity outside Companies House’s reach, or the “next capital call round” referenced in the original release may simply not have closed yet: no source found for this record states a completion date for it, or revisits the investor claim at all after May 2024. What the filing does establish is narrower and still worth stating plainly: as of the most recent confirmation statement, whatever legal change was supposed to follow the announcement has not registered on the one UK company tied to Tekno’s actual releases.

A publishing entity, and a separate acquisition push, sit alongside this

emPawa Africa’s UK structure includes a second, related company, emPawa Africa Music Publishing Services Limited, incorporated in January 2022 and previously reported on by this site in connection with a Kobalt administration deal for emPawa’s publishing catalogue. That is a different entity handling a different function, publishing administration rather than recorded-music distribution, and this record does not treat the two as interchangeable. Mr Eazi has also said publicly, in September 2025, that emPawa would begin acquiring African catalogues outright, a further and distinct kind of transaction from either the Kobalt administration deal or the Tekno joint venture. Neither of those is the subject of this record; they are noted here only so a reader does not conflate emPawa’s several separate arrangements into one.

What this means for artists

If a label services company, or any partner, tells an artist they are becoming a shareholder, “next capital call round” or similar language is a statement of intent, not a completed transaction. Capital calls are a mechanic private companies use to draw down committed investment in stages; being invited into one is not the same as holding shares. An artist in that position should ask for, and keep, the actual instrument that would make the equity real: a shareholder agreement, a share certificate, or a term sheet with a closing date, not a press quote. If the company is UK-registered, its confirmation statement is a free, public document; anyone can check whether a promised allotment has actually been filed, in minutes, the same way this record did.

The distribution half of a deal like this is easier to verify and easier to walk away from if it does not work out: it shows up, release after release, in the phonogram credit anyone can read on Apple Music or Audiomack. The equity half is invisible until either party files it or discloses a number. Treat the two halves of an announcement like this as separate promises with separate proof, because they plainly are.

Limits of this record

The May 2024 announcement is corroborated by two independently published trade accounts (Music In Africa, Digital Music News) carrying matching quotes, plus a wire republication of the underlying press release (Record of the Day); no outlet’s original source text returned an access error for this record, unlike some Kobalt material checked previously. The joint-venture and distribution claim is independently corroborated by phonogram credits read directly on three releases spanning May 2024 to June 2025. The equity/investor claim rests solely on the original press release and is not corroborated by any UK Companies House filing found for the entity tied to Tekno’s releases; this record states that plainly rather than treating the press release as proof of a completed equity transaction. No consideration, valuation or equity percentage was disclosed in any source reviewed. Companies House covers only the UK-registered side of emPawa’s operations; a Nigerian holding structure, if one exists, was not checked, because Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission has no public search API and this record did not attempt a manual filing-office lookup. The announcement date is given as 22 or 23 May 2024 depending on outlet; this record uses 23 May, the date on which two independent accounts converge.