On 9 March 2022, Oxlade was announced as signing to Epic Records and Columbia Records in a label-tagged social media video, and three trade outlets ran with it the same week. What his catalogue actually shows, checked release by release across three storefronts, is narrower and more precise than that: his own label, Troniq Music, holds his masters and has granted an exclusive licence on them to Epic Records France, part of Sony Music Entertainment France SAS. Columbia Records does not appear on a single one of his 22 own-artist releases checked. No party has corrected the record, and no contract has been made public.
What the announcement said#
The video went out on 9 March 2022, tagging Oxlade, Epic Records, Columbia Records UK and Sony Music. Three trade stories followed within a day of each other, and they do not agree on the shape of the deal. One described Epic Records plainly as “an American record label under Sony Music” and Columbia Records as the label that founded it. A second said much the same, framing Oxlade as having “bagged a deal” with an American Epic Records and being “welcomed” separately by Columbia Records, “also an American record label owned by Sony Music.” Only the third specified that Oxlade’s label attention would come from “the France-based arm of Epic Records,” while adding that “the UK arm of Columbia Records will also service” the deal and that Sony’s global division would support other territories. None of the three named Troniq Music. None cited a contract. None disclosed an amount, a term or a territory.
What the catalogue says instead#
The phonogram line, the one that opens with the circled P, records who is asserting the sound recording right on a release and on what basis. Checked across Oxlade’s own-artist catalogue on the Nigerian, US and UK Apple Music storefronts, and cross-checked against a second platform, that line has told a consistent story since the announcement. On “AWAY,” released 27 March 2020, it reads: TRONIQ INC., under exclusive licence to Epic Records France. On the “Eclipse” EP, released 20 August 2021: Troniq Music Limited under exclusive licence to Epic Records France, a division of Sony Music Entertainment France SAS. On “Want You,” released 18 March 2022, the very single the March announcement had previewed: TRONIQ INC., under exclusive licence to Epic Records France. On “KU LO SA,” reissued 21 October 2022: Troniq Music Limited under exclusive licence to Epic Records France. On “KATIGORI / PIANO,” released 17 November 2023: TRONIQ INC., under exclusive licence to Sony Music Entertainment France SAS, with no Epic branding at all that time. On the album “OFA (Oxlade From Africa),” released 20 September 2024, and again on “OFA: Deluxe Edition,” released 4 April 2025, the most recent release checked: TRONIQ Inc., under exclusive licence to Epic Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment France SAS. A Deezer album entry for the deluxe edition independently returns the same label, “Troniq Inc,” against UPC 196872982183.
Read that grammar closely, because it is doing precise legal work. “Under exclusive licence to” is licensee language. It means the party named first, Troniq, holds the right and has granted somebody else permission to exploit it for a period. It is not the language of a sale, and nothing checked shows Sony or Epic taking an assignment of Oxlade’s masters, acquiring his publishing, or buying an equity stake in his business. What the credit lines describe is a French Sony entity licensing masters from a Nigerian label, which is a materially different transaction from an American major signing an artist outright, and it is not the transaction the trade press described at the time.
Who Troniq Music is#
Troniq Music is founded and run by Godfrey Eguakun, reported to trace back to Monkey Media House in 2017 before rebranding in 2019, with offices reported in Lagos and New York. None of that lineage could be confirmed against a company registry. The only UK corporate match this desk could locate is TRONIQ LTD, company number 11686472, incorporated 20 November 2018 and dissolved 27 October 2020, its registered office recorded in Dover. That dissolution date falls before several releases, including “Eclipse” and both renderings of “KU LO SA,” that carry the “Troniq Music Limited” credit. Whether the dissolved UK company and the entity credited on those later releases are one and the same could not be established from any source checked. What is certain is that the credit line, not the announcement, is the closest thing to a public filing that exists for this relationship, and it names Troniq, not Columbia, as Oxlade’s rights holder.
Where Columbia fits, and where it does not#
Columbia Records is not a bystander in this story. Two of the three trade renderings put it front and centre, one describing Oxlade as “welcomed by Columbia Records” and embedding the original Twitter post, which tagged Epic Records, Columbia UK and Sony Music together; a third had Columbia UK “also service” the deal alongside Epic’s French arm. That is a specific, repeated claim from three separate newsrooms in the same week, and it does not show up in the masters, not on the 2020 releases, not on 2022, 2023, 2024 or the 2025 deluxe edition. If Columbia’s role was distribution or territory servicing rather than a sound-recording right, that would explain the gap, because servicing does not necessarily appear on a phonogram line. But no source checked describes that distinction, and no party has clarified it since. This record states the gap rather than resolving it for either side.
Before the deal, and a method note#
Oxlade’s earlier catalogue shows the independent road that preceded all of this: “Oxlade Music (Digitally Distributed By Rebeldigital)” on 2018 singles, “Oxlade Music, distributed by Plug Music” through 2019, and, on a single called “Sing” released 17 January 2020, two months before the Troniq credit first appears, “YBNL Nation/Oxlade Music,” naming Olamide’s label. None of that was tested against the 2022 deal’s terms. It is included because it shows a more layered path than “signed to Epic Records” suggests.
A phonogram line records what a platform currently has on file, not necessarily what was true the day a record first went out, and re-delivery can carry a current credit backward onto old catalogue. That risk is smaller here because the finding rests on releases dated contemporaneously with and after the announcement, from March 2020 through April 2025. It is also worth saying what this record does not claim: features credited to other artists on Deezer that briefly appeared to suggest a change of label were checked individually and found to be guest appearances on other people’s releases, not changes to Oxlade’s own masters.
What could not be established#
No source discloses what Sony or Epic pay Troniq, what royalty split applies, how long the licence runs, or its exact territorial scope, beyond the inference that a French licensee implies at least a European component. No newsroom page from Sony Music, Epic Records or Columbia Records announcing this deal could be located; every source checked is trade press carrying the same label-tagged social post. Troniq’s current corporate registration could not be confirmed, and the relationship between “TRONIQ INC.” and “Troniq Music Limited” as they appear on different releases could not be resolved. No publisher or administrator for Oxlade as a songwriter could be identified.
What this means for artists#
The gap between the 2022 headlines and the 2022 to 2025 credit lines is not a scandal. It is closer to the ordinary distance between how a signing gets announced and how a signing actually gets structured. A label-tagged Twitter video naming three Sony entities together photographs well and reads simply; a masters licence between an independent Nigerian company and a French Sony division is the less quotable, more accurate version of the same event, and it is the version that ends up in the metadata every streaming platform relies on.
Two habits follow, and they are not specific to Oxlade. First, when an artist is announced as “signing” to a major, check whose name sits in front of the comma on the phonogram line of the next few releases; that is the party asserting ownership, and it is usually still the artist’s own imprint. Second, treat the specific entity named in a credit line as more reliable than the entity named in a press release: “Epic Records” and “Epic Records France” are not interchangeable, and the difference determines which Sony company, and which country’s law, governs the release. The practical question for an artist weighing a similar offer is not whether a major is involved, but which subsidiary is signing the licence, on what term, and whether the artist’s own label keeps the masters, because Oxlade’s catalogue suggests his did.
Limits of this record. The 9 March 2022 announcement is documented from three trade renderings of the same underlying label-tagged social media post, published 9 and 10 March 2022, which do not agree with each other on whether Epic Records is American or French, or on Columbia Records’ precise role. No newsroom page from Sony Music, Epic Records, Columbia Records or Troniq Music announcing this deal could be located. The credit-line findings are documented from catalogue metadata fetched directly from a streaming platform’s own product entries for Oxlade’s releases across three storefronts, with the most recent finding independently corroborated against a second platform’s label field. No source discloses the deal’s value, royalty split, term or exact territory. No source states that Sony, Epic or Columbia has acquired Oxlade’s masters, his publishing, or any equity in Troniq Music. Phonogram credits reflect current distributor filings rather than necessarily the terms in force at original release, and Troniq’s own corporate registration could not be confirmed against any public registry checked.
