Deal sheet
- Status
- Operative. The most recent release carrying the Cinq licence chain is "Safe Space", issued 18 September 2026, two months after the catalogue arrangement was announced.
- Type
- Distribution, Licensing
- Parties
- Cinq Music Group, D’Kings Men Media Ltd, Mo’ Hits Records, GoDigital
- Amount
- Not disclosed
- Rights covered
- Sound recording (master) rights only, held by Cinq Music Group, LLC under an exclusive licence rather than by assignment. The phonogram line on 29 release rows covering 28 distinct titles reads in the form "(P) [year] [imprint], under exclusive license to Cinq Music Group, LLC". The imprint named in the owner position is DB Records on 20 rows, DKM Records on 8 rows and DKM Media on 1 row. No publishing or songwriter-share interest is named on any record checked, and no publisher or administrator is identified anywhere in the sources below.
- Territory
- Not stated on any source. Identical credit lines were confirmed in the Apple Music storefronts for Nigeria, the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Kenya on 2026-10-09, which establishes the licence is operative in those five markets but does not establish its contractual territory.
- Announced
- 2026-09-18
- Primary document
- Rights registry
- Sources
- Apple Music catalogue record for D'Banj, "D'kings Men" (24 June 2013, 20 tracks), Nigeria storefront: phonogram line "(P) 2013 DKM Records, under exclusive license to Cinq Music Group, LLC". Track list includes both "Oliver Twist" and "Oliver Twist (feat. Pitbull) [Remix]". · Apple Music catalogue record, D'Banj, "Safe Space" single, 18 September 2026: "(P) 2026 DKM Media, under exclusive license to Cinq Music Group, LLC". The only release in the licensed set postdating the July 2026 announcement. · Apple Music catalogue record, D'Banj, "Rundown", 2006, 17 tracks: "(P) 2006 DB Records, under exclusive license to Cinq Music Group, LLC". Earliest phonogram year in the licensed set. · Apple Music catalogue record, D'Banj, "King Don Come", 2017, 12 tracks, carrying the Cinq licence chain and including "Oliver Twist". · Apple Music catalogue record, D'Banj, standalone "Oliver Twist" single: "(P) 2017 DB Records", with no Cinq licence chain. A parallel delivery of a title that is inside the licensed set elsewhere. · Apple Music catalogue record, Mo' Hits All Stars, "Currliculum Vitae", 2009: "(P) 2009 Mo' Hits Records", no Cinq licence chain. · Apple Music catalogue record, Dr SID, "Turning Point", 2010: "(P) 2010 Mo Hits Records", no Cinq licence chain. · MusicBrainz release query for D'Banj. Attributes "Oliver Twist" (2012-05-11) to Def Jam Records, Inc. and G.O.O.D. Music, and King Don Come, D'kings Men and Comment Ca Va to "DKM Media, Inc.". Cinq Music Group does not appear. · MusicBrainz label query. Exactly one release is attributed to the label "Mo hits records": Dr Sid, Turning Point, 2010-04-11. · Deezer album record for D'Banj, "Safe Space", UPC 612735136949, ISRC USDXS2605430. Label field reads DKM Media. Cinq Music Group is not named. · Deezer album record for D'Banj, "Rundown", UPC 196006523732, ISRCs with registrant QM6N2 and year element 21. Label field reads DKM Records. Cinq Music Group is not named. · SEC Form 1-A offering circular, M&M Media, Inc., filed 2021-02-12, which names Cinq Music Group among the independent labels and aggregators holding direct sound-recording licence agreements, alongside Ingrooves, Symphonic Distribution and Empire Distribution. Filing-grade corroboration that Cinq operates through licence agreements rather than only by acquisition. · Cinq Music's own description of itself as "a full-stack music company with distribution, record label, publishing, and catalog divisions". Its news page, read in full on 2026-10-09, contains no mention of D'Banj.
Read this before citing: ESTABLISHED. Across the Apple Music storefronts for Nigeria, the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Kenya, checked 2026-10-09, 29 release rows covering 28 distinct titles credited to D'Banj carry a phonogram line naming Cinq Music Group, LLC as exclusive licensee and one of three D'Banj-side imprints as the owner of the recording: DB Records (20 rows), DKM Records (8 rows), DKM Media (1 row). Phonogram years run from 2006 to 2026. The set comprises 7 multi-track collections (Rundown, 2006, 17 tracks; The Entertainer, 2008, 10 tracks; D'kings Men, 2013, 20 tracks; An Epic Journey, 2015, 7 tracks, delivered under two separate collection IDs, 6775770358 and 6775674288; King Don Come, 2017, 12 tracks; Stress Free Chapter 1, 2021, 7 tracks) and 22 single-track releases. "Oliver Twist" sits inside the licensed set as a track on both D'kings Men and King Don Come. Exactly one release in the set postdates the July 2026 announcement: "Safe Space", 18 September 2026, "(P) 2026 DKM Media, under exclusive license to Cinq Music Group, LLC".
NOT ESTABLISHED. (1) Publishing. No publisher, administrator or songwriter-share interest is named on any source checked. Nothing in this record speaks to D'Banj's compositions. (2) Price, advance or royalty rate. No figure appears in any source and none is asserted here. (3) Term. No source states a duration, a reversion date or a renewal mechanism. (4) Contractual territory, as distinct from the five storefronts confirmed above. (5) The corporate relationship between DB Records, DKM Records, DKM Media, the "DKM Media, Inc." named by MusicBrainz, and D'Kings Men Media Ltd. Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission publishes no searchable company register, so these could not be resolved to filed entities. (6) Why the re-delivered back catalogue carries ISRCs minted in 2021. Every back-catalogue ISRC read carries registrant code QM6N2 and the year element 21, including Rundown (QM6N22158727, QM6N22158745, QM6N22158729, QM6N22158730), The Entertainer (QM6N22160562 to QM6N22160565), Agidi (QM6N22187311) and Move Your Body (QM6N22166446), on a UPC prefix of 196006. "Safe Space" breaks the pattern with ISRC USDXS2605430, a United States registrant code DXS and the year element 26, on UPC 612735136949. No source explains a 2021 identifier set sitting under a 2026 announcement. (7) The identities behind ISRC registrant codes QM6N2 and DXS, which the IFPI registrant database does not expose publicly. (8) Whether Rundown (2006) and The Entertainer (2008) were originally Mo' Hits Records releases. MusicBrainz holds no label for The Entertainer and no release at all for Rundown. (9) Whether the Cinq-chain singles "Move Your Body" (6775676135) and "Why Me (Remix)" (6775770378) are the same masters as the tracks of those names on the 2009 Mo' Hits All Stars album Currliculum Vitae. That album is not on Deezer and the Apple lookup API does not expose ISRCs, so the comparison could not be made. (10) Whether the parallel older non-Cinq deliveries still live on Apple (1634264530, 1469603998, 1573775933, 1470269590, 1451908205) will be withdrawn.
CONTRADICTION ON THE RECORD. Deezer carries the same titles with a label field reading "DKM Records" or "DKM Media" and does not name Cinq Music Group anywhere (checked 2026-10-09: Safe Space UPC 612735136949; Rundown UPC 196006523732; The Entertainer UPC 196006628192; An Epic Journey UPC 196006665876; Agidi UPC 196006665739; Breaking News UPC 196006667351; Move Your Body UPC 196006612825). MusicBrainz attributes "Oliver Twist" (2012-05-11) to Def Jam Records, Inc. and G.O.O.D. Music, and attributes King Don Come, D'kings Men and Comment Ca Va to "DKM Media, Inc.". Cinq's own newsroom, read in full on 2026-10-09 (12,733 characters), contains no mention of D'Banj. These are not errors to be reconciled: Apple's copyright field carries an ownership assertion while Deezer's label field carries the releasing party, and the two registries are answering different questions.
MO' HITS. Separately confirmed on the same date: the Mo' Hits All Stars album Currliculum Vitae (321264519) reads "(P) 2009 Mo' Hits Records" and Dr SID's Turning Point (366481125) reads "(P) 2010 Mo Hits Records", both identical in the Nigeria, United States and United Kingdom storefronts, and neither carries the Cinq licence chain. MusicBrainz attributes exactly one release to the label "Mo hits records": Dr Sid, Turning Point, 2010-04-11. Whatever Cinq now licenses, it does not on this evidence reach the Mo' Hits imprint catalogue.
RELATIONSHIP TO THE EARLIER RECORD. This record advances rather than restates the existing Afrobeats Wire deal record for the July 2026 Cinq and D'Banj arrangement, whose caveat states that it could not establish whether Cinq took masters, publishing or both, nor the exact legal name of the Cinq entity holding the rights. The distribution-chain credits resolve the first question in the direction of an exclusive master licence with ownership retained on the D'Banj side, and name the entity as Cinq Music Group, LLC. They leave publishing exactly where it was: unestablished.
