World Circuit Limited

World Circuit is a London-founded specialist record label built around African and Cuban catalogue. It was started in 1986 by Anne Hunt and Mary Farquharson, who had been touring African and Latin artists in the UK and found little of the music was commercially available there. Nick Gold, who joined as creative head, became the label’s long-running A&R and production figure, overseeing the signings that made its name: Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure, Oumou Sangare, Orchestra Baobab and Toumani Diabate from West Africa, and the Cuban Buena Vista Social Club project, whose 1997 album has sold more than eight million copies.

World Circuit sold its recorded-music and publishing catalogue to BMG in October 2018, in a deal trade press put at several million dollars. BMG, the music arm of German conglomerate Bertelsmann, took over the rights to the full catalogue, including the Buena Vista Social Club and Ali Farka Toure recordings, and Nick Gold moved to BMG to continue developing the catalogue through reissues and new projects. World Circuit is no longer an independent company.

The label does not operate in Africa and was never African-owned, but its directory entry rests on the roster itself: the recordings and publishing rights it holds are built almost entirely on West African artists, making its catalogue one of the more significant single holdings of African music masters outside the continent.