Deal sheet
- Status
- Settled as to the artist's release, unresolved as to the masters. Ibraah's departure from Konde Music Worldwide is confirmed by the label principal's own dated public statements of 15 and 16 May 2025 and by the catalogue break from 27 June 2025. That no money was paid is confirmed by the same statements. What the settlement did NOT do is move the master recordings: the phonogram credit on every Ibraah lead-artist release from 12 April 2020 to 25 April 2025 still names Konde Music Worldwide or Harmonize Entertainment Limited on both Apple Music and Deezer, verified live 9 September 2026, sixteen months after the exit. Harmonize stated on 15 May 2025 that the disputed figure was the contractual price of Ibraah owning those masters outright and that he chose not to enforce it, which is internally consistent with the credit line not moving. A reported 60/40 streaming-revenue split on the two artists' joint catalogue rests on a SINGLE report of 23 May 2025 and could not be corroborated in any second source, in any Tanzanian outlet, or in any BASATA publication; it is recorded here as a report, not as an established term. Harmonize's own public position also changed inside four days: on 11 May 2025 he said publicly that Ibraah owed the label and had to pay, and on 15 May 2025 he said he had never demanded the money.
- Type
- Settlement
- Parties
- Konde Music Worldwide, Harmonize Entertainment Limited, National Arts Council of Tanzania (BASATA)
- Amount
- TZS 0 paid. TSh 1,000,000,000 was the release figure in dispute and was not paid.
- Rights covered
- Master recordings (sound-recording copyright) in Ibraah's catalogue recorded under Konde Music Worldwide, and release from an exclusive recording agreement signed in or around April 2020. The transaction is a NEGOTIATED CONTRACT RELEASE, not an acquisition, licence or distribution deal, and not a catalogue sale. Harmonize stated on 15 May 2025 that under the agreement Ibraah would have had to pay the sum stated in the contract "for him to own the masters and make them his own for life", and that he waived it. No transfer of masters accompanied the release: the phonogram credit on the 2020-2025 catalogue is unchanged as at 9 September 2026. Publishing rights, songwriter shares, composition copyright and any COSOTA registration are NOT covered by this record and were not addressed by any source checked. Ibraah's social media accounts were reported returned to him. Recordings made after the exit, from 27 June 2025, carry Ibraah as phonogram owner in his own name.
- Territory
- Not stated by any party. The agreement was made and mediated in Tanzania under Tanzanian law, and the label's suspension notice referred to enforcement in Tanzanian courts, but neither the original recording agreement nor the release names a rights territory. The affected recordings are distributed worldwide on Apple Music and Deezer.
- Announced
- 2025-05-15
- Primary document
- Rights registry
- Sources
- Apple Music catalogue metadata, iTunes lookup API, Ibraah artist ID 1507959934, read 9 September 2026 · Deezer catalogue API, Ibraah artist 91233812: label field and UPCs corroborating the Konde Music Worldwide credit 2020-2024 and the Ibraah credit from June 2025; also the source of the Mchuchu and Tubariki cross-platform contradiction · The Citizen (Tanzania), 16 May 2025, Ramadhani Ismail and Beatrice Materu: Harmonize says the agreement required payment for master recording rights and that he chose not to enforce it; Konde Music Worldwide left with no roster · 15 May 2025: Harmonize verbatim, "The contract says for him to own the masters and make them his own for life and make him money, he needed to pay the amount stated in the contract", and "I haven't asked for that money" · Mwananchi (Tanzania), 15 May 2025: Harmonize verbatim in Swahili, "nikiri sijamdai" (I never demanded it) and "Kuanzia sasa yeye ni msanii anayejitegemea" (from now on he is an independent artist) · Mwananchi, 12 May 2025: the suspension notice, issued by Harmonize Entertainment Ltd through Konde Gang Music Worldwide, effective 11 May 2025, barring Ibraah from releasing music and from public comment · Mwananchi, 14 May 2025: BASATA summonses of 12 and 14 May 2025; BASATA head of legal Christopher Kamugisha named; Ibraah attended both, Harmonize did not; dispute dated from 3 May 2025 · 5 May 2025: Ibraah's own social-media appeal quoted verbatim, "Mzee Konde is demanding me to pay one billion and I have never made even a quarter of a billion since I started music" · 11 May 2025: Harmonize on Instagram, "you owe the label, and you have to pay" and "I don't need you anymore". Directly contradicts his 15 May position · 23 May 2025: SINGLE SOURCE for the reported 60/40 streaming split on joint recordings, the waiver of the TSh 1 billion, and the return of Ibraah's social accounts. Not corroborated elsewhere · 22 August 2023: Cheed's account of a Harmonize Entertainment contract with a TSh 1 billion artist-termination fee against a TSh 10 million label-termination fee, predating the Ibraah dispute by 21 months · The Citizen, 20 November 2021, Paul Owere: Harmonize's own WCB Wasafi terms, a 10-year contract on a 60/40 split in Diamond Platnumz's favour, a TSh 500m release clause paid in two instalments plus a TSh 100m penalty, TSh 600m in total. Reconciles the 500m/600m contradiction in later reporting · 13 April 2020: Harmonize's Instagram announcement of Ibraah as Konde Music Worldwide's first signee · BASATA official site, read 9 September 2026. CHECKED AND RULED OUT: no press release, notice, determination or register entry on this dispute anywhere on the regulator's own site · MusicBrainz. CHECKED AND RULED OUT: one release only (PM, 10 April 2026) with no label attached; no Konde Music Worldwide label entity. Corroborates nothing · Tanzania BRELA. CHECKED AND RULED OUT: online registration portal requires an account, exposes no public company search; no register entry obtained for either company
Read this before citing: NO MONEY CHANGED HANDS, AND THE DEMANDED FIGURE IS NOT A DEAL VALUE. TSh 1,000,000,000 (reported at roughly USD 400,000) is the figure Ibraah said on 3 May 2025 he was being asked for. It was not paid. Harmonize said on 11 May that Ibraah owed the label and had to pay, and on 15 May that he had never demanded the money; both statements are on the record and this desk does not adopt either. THE MASTERS DID NOT MOVE. No source states that Ibraah acquired his 2020-2025 masters, and the phonogram credit read live on 9 September 2026 shows he did not. Coverage describing this as Ibraah "getting his freedom" should not be read as him getting his catalogue. THE 60/40 SPLIT IS SINGLE-SOURCED. One report of 23 May 2025 describes a 60/40 streaming split favouring whichever artist leads a joint recording. It could not be corroborated in a second outlet, in Tanzanian press, or in any BASATA document, and no written settlement has been published. It is not treated here as an established term. NO SETTLEMENT DOCUMENT EXISTS PUBLICLY. BASATA has published nothing on this dispute on its own site. Whether the outcome is a binding written agreement, a mediated understanding, or a unilateral waiver could not be established. PUBLISHING NOT ADDRESSED. No source checked states who owns or administers the compositions, what the songwriter splits are, or whether anything is registered with COSOTA. This record covers sound recordings only. CORPORATE STRUCTURE UNVERIFIED. Whether Konde Music Worldwide is a registered company or a trading name of Harmonize Entertainment Limited could not be established; Tanzania has no public company search accessible to this desk. CONTRACT TERM UNKNOWN. The length, territory and royalty terms of the April 2020 agreement have never been published. Harmonize described it on 15 May 2025 as "four years" old, which does not reconcile cleanly with the April 2020 announcement date. CONTEXT FIGURE DISPUTED. Reports of Harmonize's own 2019 WCB Wasafi exit give TSh 500m and TSh 600m, and describe the contract as both 10-year and 15-year. NO PARTY WAS REACHED FOR COMMENT before publication; all statements are taken from dated public reporting of first-party remarks.
Ibraah walked out of Konde Music Worldwide in May 2025 and paid nothing. He also took nothing with him. The TSh 1 billion in dispute was, on the label principal’s own account, the contractual price of acquiring his master recordings outright; because it was never paid, the masters did not move. Apple Music and Deezer catalogue metadata read live on 9 September 2026 still name Konde Music Worldwide, or its corporate successor credit Harmonize Entertainment Limited, as the phonogram owner on every Ibraah lead-artist release from April 2020 to April 2025. What Ibraah gained was the freedom to record for himself from June 2025 onward. What he did not gain was his back catalogue.
The credit trail, release by release
Apple’s iTunes lookup API for Ibraah, artist ID 1507959934, returns an unbroken phonogram line. From “Nimekubali” (12 April 2020) through “Dharau” (23 February 2024), every lead-artist release carries the notice “℗ [year] Konde Music Worldwide.” Deezer’s catalogue API independently returns “Konde Music Worldwide” in the label field for the same titles, with matching UPCs. One 2020 single, “Wawa” featuring Joeboy, carries a longer form, “℗ 2020 Konde Music Worldwide Under Exclusive License to emPawa Africa Limited,” which shows the label licensing a recording out while retaining the underlying credit.
From mid 2024 the corporate name on the credit changes without the ownership changing hands. “Mchuchu” (7 June 2024), “Tubariki” (3 July 2024), “Nafunga Mwaka” (1 December 2024), “Air Piano” (6 December 2024), “Love Season” (7 February 2025) and “Copy & Paste” (25 April 2025) all read “℗ [year] Harmonize Entertainment Limited, with exclusive license to ONErpm.” That is the same legal person that issued the May 2025 suspension notice, which was announced by Harmonize Entertainment Ltd acting through the Konde Gang Music Worldwide label. “Copy & Paste,” the last release under that credit, came out eight days before Ibraah went public.
The first release crediting Ibraah himself is “Asante,” 27 June 2025, six weeks after the exit: “℗ 2025 Ibraah, with exclusive license to ONErpm.” Subsequent releases including “Unga Mwana,” “Ccm,” “Bei Chee!,” “Tumewazika,” “Mashiko” and the PM EP (10 April 2026) carry “℗ Ibraah,” several of them under exclusive licence to ONErpm. The break in the credit line is clean and it is dated. It applies only to recordings made after the exit.
Cross-platform contradiction in the 2024 credits
Apple and Deezer do not agree on the mid-2024 releases. Apple gives “Mchuchu” (7 June 2024) as “Harmonize Entertainment Limited, with exclusive license to ONErpm”; Deezer’s label field for the same title reads “Konde Music Worldwide,” UPC 705221328406. “Tubariki” appears on Deezer twice, once as “Harmonize Entertainment Limited” (UPC 8447181889666) and once as “Konde Music Worldwide” (UPC 705221950997). Two deliveries of the same recording carry two different corporate credits. This record does not resolve which is correct, and treats the two names as the same commercial operation because that is how the suspension notice describes them, not because the metadata settles it.
Distribution did not move. Ownership of new recordings did.
ONErpm is the named exclusive licensee on Ibraah’s releases both before and after the exit: first licensed from Harmonize Entertainment Limited, then licensed from Ibraah in his own name. The distributor is a constant across the dispute. Separately, Harmonize’s own lead-artist releases from August 2024 to September 2026 carry “℗ Ziiki Media” or, on three 2025 singles, “℗ Deep Strips Records,” not Konde Music Worldwide. The label imprint that held its signed artists’ masters is not the credit on the founder’s own records.
One post-settlement collaboration exists and is the only public test of the reported royalty arrangement: “Friend Zone” by Harmonize & Ibraah, 17 October 2025, credited “℗ 2025 Ziiki Media” on both Apple and Deezer. It names neither party’s own company.
The figure was not invented for Ibraah
The same TSh 1 billion appears in a Konde-related contract dispute nearly two years earlier. In an account published on 22 August 2023, the artist Cheed described a Harmonize Entertainment contract under which an artist terminating the deal owed the label TSh 1 billion, while the label terminating the deal owed the artist TSh 10 million. That is Cheed’s own characterisation and no contract has been published. It is consistent with the label principal’s May 2025 position that the figure was a contract term rather than a personal demand.
Registry checks run and their results
MusicBrainz holds one Ibraah release (PM, 10 April 2026) with no label information attached, and no label entity named Konde Music Worldwide. Its coverage of this catalogue is effectively nil and it corroborates nothing here. BASATA’s own website, read on 9 September 2026, carries a news centre, a press releases section, published laws and regulations, and public notice lists for banned songs, artists and groups; it carries no press release, notice, determination or register entry concerning Harmonize, Ibraah or Konde Music Worldwide. Tanzania’s business register, BRELA, exposes an online registration portal that requires an account and no public company search, so no register entry for Konde Music Worldwide or Harmonize Entertainment Limited was obtained.
