Deal sheet
- Status
- Announced 20 September 2022 by Def Jam Recordings and NATIVE Records, corroborated directly by two trade outlets read for this record (uDiscover Music, Record of the Day) and by the press statement both companies issued through Record of the Day. No newsroom page on either company's own site was found stating the joint venture directly; Def Jam's public presence runs through UMG's corporate site, which does not carry a dedicated release for this announcement. No party has stated the joint venture has ended or changed structure. NATIVE announced Odumodublvck as its first signed act on 23 November 2022. A separate December 2022 report described a record deal "with NATIVE Records, in partnership with Def Jam," and a September 2023 report described a direct Def Jam signing around the release of EZIOKWU; neither report is sourced to a contract, and no document checked reconciles the two.
- Type
- Joint Venture
- Parties
- Def Jam Recordings, The NATIVE, Kalacious Entertainment
- Amount
- Not disclosed. No financial terms, revenue split, advance or equity stake were stated in the announcement or in any trade rendering of it.
- Rights covered
- Joint venture, on the face of every document checked. Def Jam Recordings, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc., and NATIVE Records, the music division of NATIVE Networks, structured this as an exclusive worldwide joint venture to sign and develop African talent, not as a licence, distribution deal or acquisition of an existing catalogue. No document names which party holds the masters for recordings signed under the venture, and no equity split between Def Jam and NATIVE is disclosed. Separately, Odumodublvck's own phonogram credit line runs first-party name / NATIVE Records / Def Jam Recordings, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc. across his catalogue, changing its first-listed party from "ODUMODUBLVCK" on his October 2023 mixtape EZIOKWU to "Kalacious Entertainment" on his March 2025 and October 2025 projects. A phonogram credit records who is asserting the sound recording right as filed with a platform. It is evidence of a credit chain, not proof of who owns the underlying copyright, and no document checked states whether Kalacious Entertainment holds an equity stake in the joint venture, is a service company operating under it, or is unrelated to it in ownership terms.
- Territory
- Worldwide, exclusive. No term, renewal provision or termination clause is stated in any document checked.
- Announced
- 2022-09-20
- Primary document
- Trade press
- Sources
- Trade press report of the Def Jam Recordings and NATIVE Records joint venture announcement, published 20 September 2022, naming Def Jam Chairman and CEO Tunji Balogun and NATIVE Networks co-presidents Seni "Chubbz" Saraki and Teni "Teezee" Zaccheaus, and describing the deal as the first joint venture Def Jam had struck with an African company. · Verbatim press release as distributed to trade press, dateline 20 September 2022, read directly · Apple Music, EZIOKWU album page, phonogram line read directly: (P) 2023 ODUMODUBLVCK/NATIVE Records/Def Jam Recordings, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc. · Apple Music, THE MACHINE IS COMING album page, phonogram line read directly: (P) 2025 Kalacious Entertainment/NATIVE Records/Def Jam Recordings, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc. · Apple Music, INDUSTRY MACHINE album page, phonogram line read directly: (P) 2025 Kalacious Entertainment/NATIVE Records/Def Jam Recordings, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc. · Wikipedia article on Odumodublvck, read directly via the MediaWiki API, cited here only for its own citations to Culture Custodian (23 November 2022, first NATIVE signing) and Guardian Nigeria (10 December 2022, record deal with NATIVE Records in partnership with Def Jam), not treated as a primary source in its own right · Kalacious Entertainment's own site, artist and roster page, read directly
Read this before citing: This record documents a joint venture, not an acquisition, a catalogue sale or a straightforward licence, and it does not establish who owns any master recording. Four points stand. First, no financial terms were disclosed anywhere: not the equity split between Def Jam and NATIVE, not any advance, and not a term length or renewal date for the venture itself. Second, Odumodublvck's phonogram credit changed its first-listed party from "ODUMODUBLVCK" to "Kalacious Entertainment" between his October 2023 mixtape EZIOKWU and his March 2025 and October 2025 projects, checked directly against each release's Apple Music page; NATIVE Records and Def Jam Recordings remain listed after it on all three. This record does not establish why the credit changed, and treats Kalacious Entertainment's relationship to the 2022 joint venture as an open question rather than a confirmed acquisition of rights, a new signing, or a renegotiation. Third, press coverage does not agree on how many distinct deals exist: the September 2022 announcement describes one joint venture; a December 2022 report describes a record deal "with NATIVE Records, in partnership with Def Jam"; and a September 2023 report describes Def Jam signing Odumodublvck directly. No document checked states whether these are three descriptions of one relationship or two or three separate contracts, and this record does not resolve that. Fourth, a Music Week article originally read for this record could not be re-verified at the time of publication: its URL now redirects to an unrelated story, evidently because the outlet reassigned that numeric slug to newer content. It has been dropped from the sources list rather than cited from memory, consistent with the rule that every claim here traces to a document that resolves and can be checked.
Def Jam Recordings and NATIVE Records signed an exclusive worldwide joint venture on 20 September 2022, the entry point for a three-year rights chain that now runs through Odumodublvck’s own catalogue. No financial terms were disclosed at any stage, and no document reviewed states who holds the masters.
The announcement named Def Jam Chairman and CEO Tunji Balogun on one side and NATIVE Networks co-presidents Seni “Chubbz” Saraki and Teni “Teezee” Zaccheaus on the other, describing it as the first joint venture Def Jam had struck with an African company. NATIVE Records is the music division of NATIVE Networks, the Lagos and UK media company Saraki, Zaccheaus, Shola Fagbemi, Addy Edgal and Suleiman Shittu founded in 2016.
Two months later, on 23 November 2022, NATIVE introduced Odumodublvck as the joint venture’s first signed act, releasing his single “Picanto.” A record deal “with NATIVE Records, in partnership with Def Jam” followed in December 2022. Separately, press in September 2023 reported that Def Jam Recordings had signed Odumodublvck directly around the release of his mixtape EZIOKWU. No source checked explains whether that is a distinct contract or a description of the same NATIVE joint venture from a different angle, and this record treats it as an open question rather than a second deal.
Kalacious Entertainment, an artist-management and label company most visible through its association with Odumodublvck, is the first-listed party in his phonogram credit line from 2025 onward, ahead of NATIVE Records and Def Jam Recordings. No public document names Kalacious Entertainment’s founder, founding date or ownership structure.
