Kuami Eugene’s 2018 Debut Album Carries Two Label Credits for the Same UPC

The same recording, the same catalogue number, carries two different owners on the same streaming registry. Deezer’s catalogue holds two separate entries for Kuami Eugene’s 2018 debut album Rockstar, both tagged with the identical UPC 859729586117, the identical 13-track count and the identical 15 December 2018 release date. One entry’s label field reads “Lynx Entertainment.” The other reads “Waka Music Limited.” Both are live on the platform as of this writing. No statement from Kuami Eugene, Lynx Entertainment or Waka Music Limited explains why.

What the registry actually shows

Deezer album 530767532 and Deezer album 1033567942 are, on every field that can be checked, the same record: artist Kuami Eugene, title Rockstar, UPC 859729586117, release date 2018-12-15, 13 tracks. The only field that differs between them is the label credit. One names the Ghanaian label Kuami Eugene signed to as a teenager after winning MTN’s Hitmaker talent show in 2016. The other names a company that, by its own apparent founding date, did not exist when the album came out.

Apple Music’s listing for the same album carries only one of those names: “℗ 2018 Waka Music Limited.” That credit sits on an Apple Music catalogue identifier in the high numeric range Apple assigns to recent uploads, consistent with the recording having been re-delivered to the store years after its original 2018 release rather than the original upload simply persisting untouched.

A company this desk has already flagged once

Waka Music Limited is not new to this desk. A separate investigation opened on 1 September 2026, prompted by its phonogram credit on Shatta Wale releases, could not establish the company’s headquarters, ownership or jurisdiction. The only matching corporate registration found anywhere was a private company of the identical name incorporated in Hong Kong on 8 March 2023, which that investigation could not confirm or rule out as the same entity Ghanaian trade press describes. UK Companies House has no company registered under the exact name. Ghana’s own company registry has no public search tool. On the date Kuami Eugene’s “Rockstar” picked up a second owner, the identity of that owner was already, independently, unresolved.

What Ghanaian trade press does establish is the business model. Pulse.com.gh and GhanaWeb reported on 20 August 2025 that Waka Music Limited had leased or acquired master recording rights to catalogue from fourteen named Ghanaian acts, including Sarkodie, Shatta Wale, Fameye, Lasmid and Kuami Eugene, reportedly against upfront payments to the artists. Pulse.com.gh’s own wording is not consistent on the legal form: the company “assumes master recording rights for artists’ past work” in one line and the artists “lease their catalogues” to it in the next. Neither report names a figure for Kuami Eugene specifically, and both say the individual deal terms are confidential. No contract has been made public for any of the fourteen.

The credit trail before the lease

The Lynx Entertainment credit on the disputed “Rockstar” entry is not in doubt elsewhere in Kuami Eugene’s catalogue history. Lynx, the Accra label founded by producer Richie Mensah in 2006, signed Kuami Eugene around 2016 and released “Rockstar” under its own name in 2018. The relationship held for years without a public credit dispute.

It changed shape, though not its name, in October and November 2022. After Kuami Eugene posted an ambiguous Instagram line, “This is how it ends. I played my part,” that read to fans as an exit, Lynx issued a statement on 3 November 2022 describing what had actually happened: not a departure, but a “strategic partnership agreement” bringing in the American label, distributor and publisher EMPIRE to work alongside Lynx on Kuami Eugene’s career, following a relationship Lynx said it had already built with EMPIRE since 2021 through KiDi. The single that followed, “Single,” released 3 November 2022, carries exactly that: Deezer and Apple Music both record its phonogram line as “Lynx Entertainment / EMPIRE.” His 2023 album LOVE AND CHAOS carries a related but not identical credit, “Lynx Ghana Limited / EMPIRE,” on both platforms, UPC 197342336000. The small change from “Lynx Entertainment” to “Lynx Ghana Limited” between the two releases is itself unexplained in any source checked for this record, and no Ghanaian or other public company registry was available to confirm which, if either, is the label’s registered legal name.

An exit nobody would confirm, then one person did

By August 2024, Ghanaian entertainment press was reporting that Kuami Eugene had quietly left Lynx, citing sources who put the actual departure two to three months earlier. On 10 September 2024 Kuami Eugene posted artwork for a new single, “Belinda,” crediting “Rock Star Records and Clear Road Music Group,” with no Lynx name anywhere on it. When “Belinda” actually reached stores three days later, on 13 September 2024, its registered phonogram credit, confirmed directly on Deezer and Apple Music, read neither of those two names. It read “Clear Road Music Records” alone, UPC 5063549793036. The artist’s own announcement and the record’s own legal credit did not match on the day either one existed.

Eleven days after that mismatch, on 21 October 2024, Kuami Eugene went on Hitz FM’s Daybreak Hitz and denied any of it amounted to an exit. “Me and Lynx are still working,” he told host Andy Dosty. “I just sent a song to Richie two days ago on a project he is working on.” Asked about the rumours, he added: “people are just trying to end our contact for us,” and said that if the relationship had actually ended, “we will put it out.”

Nobody put it out for another three months. On 23 January 2025, also on Daybreak Hitz, DJ Slim asked Lynx CEO Richie Mensah directly whether Kuami Eugene was no longer signed to the label. “Yes, that’s public knowledge,” Mensah said, naming the label’s remaining roster as KiDi, DJ Vyrusky and DSL. The confirmation came four months after Kuami Eugene’s own on-air denial, and sixteen months after his own first post-Lynx commercial release had already carried zero Lynx credit.

Two names, two catalogues, running at once

Since the split was confirmed, Kuami Eugene’s new, original material has carried a consistent credit: “Clear Road Music Records,” frequently qualified “under exclusive license to ONErpm” on commercial metadata, covering the 2025 singles and the eight-track 2026 EP Sweet Boy (Deezer, UPC 724523678477, label “CLEAR ROAD MUSIC RECORDS,” 30 April 2026). ONErpm is a US-headquartered independent distributor with a dedicated Lagos-run Africa operation; nothing checked for this record suggests it holds any ownership stake in Clear Road Music Records or in Kuami Eugene’s masters, only a distribution role.

Running alongside that catalogue, under a different name, is older and re-recorded material. “Monica (Live),” a 2025 re-recording of a 2023 Lynx/EMPIRE-era album track, carries “Waka Music Limited” on both Deezer (UPC 790522948712, released 25 April 2025) and Apple Music. The 2026 retrospective album Renaissance: Echoes of the Rockstar, a 22-track collection revisiting songs from across his catalogue including “Angela,” “Wish Me Well” and “Aku Shika,” carries the same Waka Music Limited credit (Deezer, UPC 199316558081, released 4 May 2026). So, per the Deezer entry this record is built on, does the second, newer copy of the original 2018 Rockstar album itself.

What is established and what is not

• Established. Two live Deezer catalogue entries for the identical “Rockstar” release (same UPC, same date, same track count) credit two different companies as label: Lynx Entertainment on one, Waka Music Limited on the other. Apple Music’s current listing for the same album carries only the Waka Music Limited credit. Both facts were confirmed directly against the Deezer and Apple Music catalogues for this record.
• Established. Ghanaian trade press, on 20 August 2025, named Kuami Eugene as one of fourteen artists who leased or had acquired master rights to catalogue by Waka Music Limited, describing upfront payments in general terms.
• Not established. The legal form of whatever arrangement exists between Kuami Eugene and Waka Music Limited. Trade press uses “lease” and “acquires master recording rights” interchangeably, which are not the same transaction, and no contract is public.
• Not established. Any consideration specific to Kuami Eugene. No figure, royalty rate or term is disclosed in any source checked.
• Not established. Waka Music Limited’s headquarters, ownership or the jurisdiction under which it operates. See this desk’s prior, separate finding on the company above.
• Not established. Whether the Lynx Entertainment credit on the first Deezer “Rockstar” entry has been formally superseded, corrected, or simply left unreconciled alongside the newer one. Neither Deezer, Lynx Entertainment nor Waka Music Limited has said.
• Not established. Any publishing-rights dimension to any of this. Every source checked addresses recorded-master credits only.

What this means for artists

The lesson here is not about Kuami Eugene’s choices, which by the reporting available were his to make. It is about what a catalogue-rights deal looks like from outside once it is signed: not a press release, but a quiet change to a label field that two platforms do not even agree on, sitting next to an older entry nobody appears to have deleted. An artist who leases or sells rights to older recordings, as Ghanaian trade press reports Kuami Eugene and thirteen others did with Waka Music Limited, should expect the commercial record of that deal to arrive exactly this way: unannounced, inconsistently applied across stores, and resting on a buyer whose own corporate identity may be harder to verify than the artist’s. Checking what a (P) line actually says, on more than one platform, before and after a reported deal, remains the only outside check available when nobody involved is naming terms.