Mayorkun’s Masters Were Licensed, Not Sold. Every Release Since 20 August 2021 Reads ‘Sony Music West Africa, Under Exclusive Licence From Avante Digital Concepts’

Deal sheet

Status

Confirmed

Type

Licensing

Parties

Avante Digital Concepts Limited, Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited

Amount

Not disclosed Not disclosed

Rights covered

Master recordings only. An exclusive licence in which Avante Digital Concepts Limited is the named licensor and Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited is the named licensee and the phonogram claimant. The credit line reads, in its current form, "℗ 2026 Nigeria – Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited, under exclusive license from Avante Digital Concepts Limited", and in the same form, with minor spelling variations, on all 16 own-name Mayorkun releases dated 20 August 2021 to 28 August 2026.

WHAT IS ESTABLISHED: that an exclusive licence exists; that Avante grants it; that Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited holds it and is the label of record at the streaming services. WHAT IS NOT: no source reviewed states that Avante owns the underlying masters. A licensor can normally grant only what it controls, and that is the ordinary reading, but it is an inference from the wording rather than a statement in any document, and this record does not assert ownership.

NOT AN ASSIGNMENT AND NOT A SALE. No catalogue purchase, master acquisition or transfer of ownership is claimed here and none is evidenced. Sony is not credited as owner anywhere in the catalogue.

PUBLISHING IS NOT COVERED. No source located addresses the publishing right in Mayorkun's compositions or who administers it. ASCAP's repertory search returned HTTP 403 and BMI's returned a bot-protection interstitial when queried on 16 September 2026. No publisher or administrator is named anywhere in the release metadata read. Publishing is recorded as could not be established.

THE PRE-2021 CATALOGUE DID NOT MOVE. Mayorkun's own-name releases up to and including "Your Body" (4 December 2020) still carry "℗ Davido Music Worldwide" on both Apple and Deezer as read on 16 September 2026. Nothing in the catalogue indicates that those masters were reverted, bought back or re-credited. Separately, two DMW releases on which Mayorkun is a featured artist, "Prayer" (2017) and "Mind" (2018), now read "Davido Music Worldwide Limited, Under Exclusive License to Virgin Music Nigeria", which is a change on DMW's side and not connected by any source to Mayorkun's arrangement.

Territory

Not stated by any party. The phonogram line opens with the word "Nigeria" before naming Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited, which is the group's Nigerian operating entity. That token is not evidence of a territory limit on the licence: the identical credit string was returned from the Nigerian, United States, United Kingdom, Ghanaian, South African, French, Kenyan and Canadian Apple storefronts when each was queried separately on 16 September 2026, and no territory-specific alternative licensee appears in any of them. The releases are on sale worldwide under one credit. That is consistent with a single worldwide licence held by the Nigerian Sony company, but it does not prove one, and neither the term nor the territory of the licence appears in any document reviewed.

Announced

2021-08-20

Primary document

Rights registry

Sources

Apple catalogue lookup for Mayorkun (Apple artist ID 1102734820), Nigerian storefront, read 16 September 2026, returning 128 rows covering the catalogue from 12 April 2016 to 28 August 2026, each carrying the phonogram credit line, collection name and release date, and showing the change from "Davido Music Worldwide" to "Nigeria – SM Entertainment West Africa Limited, under exclusive licence from Avante Digital concepts limited" between 4 December 2020 and 20 August 2021 · Apple Music release page for "Let Me Know", fetched 16 September 2026, HTTP 200, rendering the credit "℗ 2021 Nigeria – SM Entertainment West Africa Limited, under exclusive licence from Avante Digital concepts limited". This is the first release on which the credit appears. · Apple Music release page for the album Back In Office, fetched 16 September 2026, HTTP 200, rendering the same 2021 credit line. · Apple Music release page for "Alarm", fetched 16 September 2026, HTTP 200, rendering "℗ 2022 Nigeria – Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited, under exclusive licence from Avante Digital concepts limited", the form using the Sony name in full. · Apple Music release page for the album Still The Mayor, fetched 16 September 2026, HTTP 200, rendering "℗ 2025 Nigeria – Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited, under exclusive license from Avante Digital Concepts Limited". · Apple Music release page for "Kaluba", the tenth-anniversary single, fetched 16 September 2026, HTTP 200, rendering the same credit dated 2026. This is the most recent release checked. · Apple Music release page for the 2018 album The Mayor of Lagos, fetched 16 September 2026, HTTP 200, rendering "℗ 2018 Davido Music Worldwide", the pre-2021 comparator showing that the earlier catalogue was not re-credited. · Deezer artist album index for Mayorkun, read 16 September 2026, returning 50 entries and supplying the album IDs used for every Deezer label reading in this record. · Deezer album endpoint for "Let Me Know", read 16 September 2026, returning label "SM Entertainment West Africa Limited" and release date 2021-08-20, the first Sony-credited release. · Deezer album endpoint for "Your Body", read 16 September 2026, returning label "Davido Music Worldwide" and release date 2020-12-04, the last DMW-credited release. · Deezer album endpoint for Still The Mayor, read 16 September 2026, returning label "SM Entertainment West Africa Limited" and release date 2025-06-13. · Deezer album endpoint for "Kaluba", read 16 September 2026, returning label "Sound African Recordings" and release date 2026-08-28. This is the single point at which Deezer's label field departs from the rest of the post-2021 catalogue. · Deezer album endpoint for The Mayor of Lagos, read 16 September 2026, returning label "Davido Music Worldwide" and release date 2018-11-16. · MusicBrainz release search for Mayorkun, read 16 September 2026, HTTP 200, returning "SM Entertainment West Africa Limited" as the label on both Still The Mayor and Back In Office. A third rights registry, independent of Apple and Deezer, agreeing on the label of record. A separate MusicBrainz label query for "Avante Digital Concepts" returned a count of zero: the licensor has no label entry in that registry. · oEmbed record confirming the existence and provenance of the Arise News interview clip titled "My Contract With DMW Has Been Done For About 3-4 Years Now -Mayorkun", published on the Arise News channel, read 16 September 2026. · Nigerian music trade report dated 24 April 2025, fetched 16 September 2026, HTTP 200, carrying the verbatim quote from the Arise News interview: "My contract with DMW has been done for about 3 to 4 years, but I'm still with them", and reporting that he had by then been signed with Sony Music for three years. · Nigerian news report dated 12 June 2025, fetched 16 September 2026, HTTP 200, carrying the verbatim quote given to 3Music TV: "Aside from having my label, right now I'm also with Sony Africa. Shout out to Davido for that as well, he facilitated the deal." · Label feature dated 8 December 2025, fetched 16 September 2026, HTTP 200, describing Sound African Recordings as "a subsidiary of Sony Music Africa" founded in 2014 and led by Katlego Malatji as Director of South African Repertoire. Cited only to establish that the outlier label field on "Kaluba" names another Sony company rather than a third party. · Pan-African music trade feature dated 11 September 2024, fetched 16 September 2026, HTTP 200, naming Mayorkun among the artists Sony Music West Africa has backed. It carries no description of deal structure and is cited only as confirmation that the Sony entity itself associates the artist with its roster. · UK Companies House public search, fetched 16 September 2026, HTTP 200, returning a "No results found" page. Recorded as an attempted check that produced no usable result: the same interface returned "No results found" for a control query on a company known to be on the UK register, so the negative cannot be relied on.

Read this before citing: NOTHING WAS ANNOUNCED. No press release from Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited, Sony Music Entertainment Africa, Avante Digital Concepts Limited, Davido Music Worldwide or the artist announcing this arrangement was located. A full-text search of SEC EDGAR returned zero hits for "Mayorkun" and zero for "Avante Digital Concepts". The announced date recorded here, 20 August 2021, is the release date of the first record carrying the credit, not the date of any agreement, which is unknown.

NO AMOUNT EXISTS ANYWHERE. No advance, fee, royalty rate, term length, option structure or equity component appears in any source located. "Not disclosed" is the accurate entry for both amount and currency, not a placeholder for a figure this desk failed to find.

OWNERSHIP OF THE MASTERS IS INFERRED, NOT STATED. The credit names Avante as licensor. No document says Avante owns the recordings. The ordinary reading of an exclusive licence is that the licensor controls what it grants, but this record does not convert that reading into an ownership claim.

WHO OWNS AVANTE COULD NOT BE ESTABLISHED. Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission has no public API and its public search returned HTTP 403 to an automated request on 16 September 2026. UK Companies House was checked and produced an unusable result, described in the sources list. MusicBrainz holds no label entry for the name. No incorporation number, director, shareholder or registered address for Avante Digital Concepts Limited was located in any source. The Nigerian registration number RC-1210452 circulating in this desk's queue attaches to Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited, not to Avante, and was not independently confirmed in this session.

THE ARTIST HAS NEVER NAMED THE COMPANY. Mayorkun told 3Music TV in June 2025, "Aside from having my label, right now I'm also with Sony Africa." He says he has his own label. He does not name Avante Digital Concepts Limited, and no source reviewed connects him to that company by name. The widely repeated assumption that Avante is his own vehicle is therefore recorded here as unproven.

THE TWO ACCOUNTS OF THE DMW EXIT DO NOT FULLY AGREE. In an Arise News interview reported on 24 April 2025 Mayorkun said his DMW contract "has been done for about 3 to 4 years", which places its end somewhere between April 2021 and April 2022. His last DMW-credited release is dated 4 December 2020 and his first Sony-credited release 20 August 2021. Separately, unattributed social media claims that he was "pushed out" of DMW circulate; no named party has said so on the record, and nothing located supports it. The contract-expiry account is the only one given on the record by a named person, and it is the only one this record carries.

DAVIDO'S ROLE IS STATED BUT UNDEFINED. Mayorkun said of the Sony arrangement, "Shout out to Davido for that as well, he facilitated the deal." What "facilitated" means commercially, whether Davido, Davido Music Worldwide or any connected entity holds any continuing interest, royalty participation or override in the post-2021 recordings, is not stated anywhere and could not be established. Davido Music Worldwide is not recorded as a party to this deal for that reason.

THE KALUBA LABEL FIELD CONTRADICTS THE REST. On the most recent release, "Kaluba" (28 August 2026), Deezer's label field reads "Sound African Recordings" rather than the Sony West Africa entity that appears on every other post-2021 release. Apple's phonogram line on the same release is unchanged and still names Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited under exclusive licence from Avante. Sound African Recordings is described in a December 2025 label feature as a subsidiary of Sony Music Africa, so the divergence appears to be a routing change inside the Sony group rather than a change of counterparty. No source states this. It is recorded as an unresolved discrepancy between two registries, not as a new arrangement.

DATE DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN REGISTRIES. Apple dates the album Back In Office to 30 September 2021 and Deezer to 29 October 2021. Apple dates "Certified Loner (No Competition)" to 16 June 2022 and Deezer to 17 June 2022. Both are recorded; neither is resolved.

THE LICENSEE NAME CHANGES IN THE METADATA. Releases from August 2021 to the album Back In Office name "SM Entertainment West Africa Limited". From "Certified Loner (No Competition)" on 16 June 2022 the same position reads "Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited". Deezer's label field continues to read "SM Entertainment West Africa Limited" throughout. This site's company record for the Sony entity already carries "SM Entertainment West Africa Limited" as a recorded alias. The change is treated as a metadata correction, not as a change of party.

THE LICENSOR NAME IS SPELLED TWO WAYS. "Avante Digital concepts limited" appears on releases from August 2021 to May 2024. "Avante Digital Concepts Limited" appears from November 2024 onward. Treated as the same entity throughout on the basis of identical position and function in an otherwise unchanged credit line.

A SIMILAR NAME IS NOT TREATED AS THE SAME COMPANY. One release, "No Love (18 Plus)" of 24 November 2022, carries the phonogram credit "Avante Entertainment" on Apple and the same as its Deezer label, with no Sony party named. No source links "Avante Entertainment" to "Avante Digital Concepts Limited" and this record does not merge them.

EXCLUSIONS. Guest appearances and third-party issues are excluded from the ownership trail because a phonogram credit records the issuing party's claim, not the featured artist's label position. Releases excluded on that basis include those credited to Marlian Music, Zanku Records, Ziiki Media, Crux Global / MOVES Recordings, Sugar Mummy Records, Rec. 118, FrontRo Music Group LLC / EMPIRE, 5K Records Limited, BuVision/Loop Music, Darkoo Limited, Cinq Music Group and others returned by the same lookup.

PUBLISHING IS ABSENT. This record covers master recordings only. No publisher or administrator for Mayorkun's compositions is named in any source reviewed, and two performing rights organisation repertory searches were blocked when attempted.