Partisan Records
- Based in
- Brooklyn, New York, United States
- Website
- partisanrecords.com
Partisan Records is an independent record company whose phonogram credit appears on every Femi Kuti album release delivered to Apple Music from 2008 onward, and on Mádé Kuti releases from October 2020 to September 2022. It is the named phonogram owner on the worldwide editions of those recordings in the United States, United Kingdom, France and South African storefronts.
The company is not registered at Companies House in the United Kingdom. A search of the register for “Partisan Records” returns no company of that name. Its own store operates a United States storefront defaulting to USD, and the correspondence addresses recorded at Companies House for two directors of the Fela Kuti catalogue licensee Kalakuta Sunrise Limited, Morgan H Margolis and Timothy Lewis Putnam, are in Brooklyn, New York. Its precise legal entity, state of incorporation and ownership could not be established from any register reachable for this profile.
Partisan’s own artist roster page lists Fela Kuti and Femi Kuti as current artists and Seun Kuti as an alumnus. The official Fela Kuti website states that since 2008 the Kuti family has partnered with Knitting Factory Entertainment and Partisan Records to reissue the Fela catalogue. The corporate relationship between Partisan Records and Knitting Factory Records Inc. is asserted in trade coverage but is not established here by any document from a register.
Partisan’s phonogram claim on the Femi Kuti catalogue is broader than its release history. The 2008 album Day By Day was released on Wrasse Records in the United Kingdom, Mercer Street Records in the United States and Labelmaison in France, and carries none of those names on its Apple phonogram line, which reads Partisan Records. Africa For Africa (2011) and One People One World (2018) were issued on Knitting Factory Records catalogue numbers KFR1113 and KFR1142-2, and both now read Partisan Records on the phonogram line.
Partisan appears as the named licensor on two Nigeria-only editions of Femi Kuti recordings, credited “Partisan Records under exclusive license to Chocolate City LTD”. Those editions are not available in the United States or United Kingdom storefronts.