AKA’s Masters Have Carried the Vth Season Credit for All but Two of the Last Thirteen Years. His Death in 2023 Did Not Move Them.

AKA’s masters have carried the same underlying credit for all but two of the thirteen years since his debut, and his death in February 2023 did not change that. From “Altar Ego” in 2011 to the posthumous “Mass Country” in 2023, the phonogram line on Kiernan Forbes’s recordings reads Vth Season, exclusively licensed to Sony Music Entertainment Africa. The one interruption ran from mid-2017 to late 2018, when Forbes broke from Vth Season, formed his own company, and licensed his masters to Universal Music South Africa instead, before re-signing with Sony and Vth Season in October 2018. No document obtained for this record shows that arrangement changing since, through his death or after it.

Sony Music Entertainment Africa and Vth Season have not issued any statement on what happens to AKA’s catalogue now that he is dead. Neither has anyone else. That silence, eighteen months on, is itself worth recording.

What actually changed, and when

Forbes signed to Vth Season, the independent label co-founded by Raphael Benza, and released his debut album “Altar Ego” through it on 23 August 2011. Apple Music’s catalogue page for the album, re-delivered at some point after original release, carries the credit “Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd, under exclusive licence from Vth Season.” His 2014 album “Levels” carries a shorter version, “SME Africa (Pty) Ltd” alone, and his 2015 and 2016 singles read “Benza Consulting CC T/A VTH Season exclusively licensed by SME Africa (Pty) Ltd,” Benza Consulting being Vth Season’s registered trading name. The pattern is consistent: Vth Season held the masters, and Sony Music Entertainment Africa held an exclusive licence to release and distribute them.

In October 2016, Forbes publicly announced he was cutting ties with Vth Season. He formed a company called Beam Group with a business partner, Prince Nyembe, that December. The Vth Season relationship formally ended on 1 June 2017; South African entertainment site TimesLIVE reported the split on 7 June, quoting Forbes: “I have the utmost respect for the Vth Season team. Together, we created magic.” His single “Be Careful What You Wish For,” released 28 July 2017, carries a new credit: “Beam Group (Pty) Ltd & Yal Entertainment CC, under exclusive license to Universal Music (Pty) Ltd (ZA).” Every release through his 2018 album “Touch My Blood” carries some form of the Beam Group credit, with Universal Music South Africa as licensee in place of Sony.

The split was not clean. By November 2017, Benza’s lawyer was pursuing Forbes over an estimated R500,000 in unpaid dues, under a separation settlement the two sides had signed before a sheriff of the court that July. News24 reported Vth Season rejected a repayment plan running to September 2018 as unreasonable. Forbes denied owing the money and said Vth Season had lost prestige after he left it; Nyembe said Vth Season owed Forbes more, without naming a figure.

Despite that dispute, Forbes and Vth Season reunited within a year. On 8 October 2018, South African culture site YOMZANSI reported the re-signing, quoting Forbes directly: “I am proud to announce my new partnership with SONY Music Africa and Vth Season. This is a long term global deal that will take my music to new heights for many albums to come!” Benza was quoted describing the combination as one of the strongest in the business. Beam Group was wound down. From this point, Forbes’s phonogram credits revert to the Sony Music Entertainment Africa, under exclusive licence from Vth Season pattern, and every release checked for this record, through “Bhovamania” (2020), “Tears Run Dry” (2021), “Lemons” and “Paradise” (2022), keeps that exact structure.

Forbes was shot dead in Durban on 10 February 2023, alongside Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane. His family confirmed on 15 February that his fourth album, “Mass Country,” would still be released on 24 February as planned, in a statement naming three parties as managing the rollout: Vth Season, a company called The T Effect, and Sony Music Entertainment Africa. Sony Music Entertainment Africa’s managing director, Sean Watson, said publicly that the label had lost “not only an icon but someone who was dear to us as a member of the Sony family.” The album’s own Apple Music credit reads exactly as its immediate predecessors did: Sony Music Entertainment Africa, under exclusive licence from Vth Season. The same is true of “Company (Remix),” released that December.

What the credit line does, and does not, prove

A phonogram credit records who submitted the release to a distributor and under what licence, not a finding of legal ownership and not a full contract. Read narrowly, what thirteen years of unbroken credits show is that Vth Season has held Forbes’s masters, with a single interruption, since 2011, and that Sony Music Entertainment Africa’s exclusive licence to release them has not visibly moved since October 2018, before or after his death.

What it does not show is anything about an estate. No document obtained for this record, filing, statement or otherwise, addresses who now controls Forbes’s share of masters royalties, whether his estate has any reversion right, or whether his 2018 contract terms survive him unmodified. A Kiernan Forbes Foundation launched in his memory in February 2024, but nothing found ties it to catalogue control. No South African company registry filing was checked: the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission has no public search interface, so this record relies on phonogram credits and contemporaneous reporting rather than incorporation documents.

Two further caveats. Forbes’s 2018 album “Touch My Blood” carries two different credit lines across separate catalogue entries, one reading “Beam Group” and one reading “Brand AKA,” reported here as a metadata inconsistency rather than resolved. And a 2024 single called “King Size” is not a change to Forbes’s own catalogue: it is South African rapper K.O’s own release, featuring Forbes posthumously, credited to K.O’s own imprint Skhanda Republic. This record flags that distinction because it is an easy one to get wrong from the credit alone.

What this means for artists

A public falling-out with your label does not, by itself, move your masters anywhere permanent. Forbes’s split from Vth Season in 2017 was bitter enough to reach a settlement signed before a court sheriff. It still ended in reunion a year later, on terms that put his catalogue back with the same two companies for the rest of his life. The heat of an exit is not a reliable guide to where the rights end up.

Your phonogram credit is the cheapest ownership check you have, and it is also an incomplete one. Anyone can read AKA’s credit history off Apple Music for free, and doing so shows exactly which company licensed which release, in real time. What it cannot show is what a private contract says about advances, royalty splits, or reversion dates. Artists relying on the credit line as their only evidence of a deal’s terms are reading a label, not a contract.

Death does not, on its own, unwind an exclusive licence. Forbes’s estate has not been reported to have renegotiated, challenged or confirmed anything about his Sony/Vth Season arrangement since February 2023, and the credit line has not moved. Absent public reporting to the contrary, the working assumption for any artist’s family should be that a masters licence signed while alive continues to govern the catalogue after death, unless the contract itself, or a court, says otherwise.

Featured credits on someone else’s release do not belong to your estate. The “King Size” case is a reminder that a deceased artist’s name can appear on a new company’s catalogue entry as a guest, with no bearing on who controls their own masters.

How this was verified

Primary source: YOMZANSI, a South African culture site, 8 October 2018, reporting and directly quoting Forbes’s, Raphael Benza’s and Sony Music Entertainment Africa’s own statements on the re-signing, corroborated by Hype Magazine’s contemporaneous report of the same announcement. The 2016-2018 split was built from TimesLIVE’s 7 June 2017 report, quoting Forbes directly, and News24’s 5 November 2017 report on the resulting fee dispute and settlement. The confirmation that “Mass Country” proceeded as planned after Forbes’s death, naming Vth Season, The T Effect and Sony Music Entertainment Africa as the parties managing that release, comes from News24’s 15 February 2023 report of the family statement; Sean Watson’s quote comes from Bizcommunity’s coverage of the same event. Every phonogram credit cited was read directly from Apple Music’s own catalogue metadata for AKA (artist ID 3556203), covering releases from 2011 through 2024, not summarised from a third party. MusicBrainz’s release data was checked as a secondary cross-reference; its release-group entry for “Mass Country” carries an incorrect year in one field, which this record does not rely on. No South African company registry was consulted, for the reason stated above.

Quick answers

Who owns AKA’s masters?

Vth Season has held them, under exclusive licence to Sony Music Entertainment Africa, since October 2018, and for five years before that between 2011 and 2016. The only interruption was a roughly year-long period from mid-2017 to late 2018, when the masters sat with Forbes’s own company, Beam Group, licensed to Universal Music South Africa instead.

Did AKA’s death change who controls his catalogue?

Not visibly. Every release checked from before his death in February 2023 through his posthumous single that December carries the identical credit. No filing, statement or report obtained for this record describes any change to that arrangement since.

Is “King Size” part of AKA’s catalogue?

No. It is South African rapper K.O’s own single, released under K.O’s imprint Skhanda Republic, on which AKA appears as a posthumous featured artist.

How much was any of this worth?

Not disclosed, at any stage. No source obtained for this record states an advance, royalty rate, settlement figure or catalogue value for any part of this arrangement.