Deal sheet
- Status
- Chronology as the documents give it, and the order is the point.
12 August 2017: SAMPA THE GREAT PTY LTD is recorded as active on the Australian Business Register, with GST registration from the same date.
10 November 2017: Birds and the BEE9 is released, three months after the company is registered, and its phonogram line reads "Big Dada". Barcode 5054429121131, catalogue number BDDNL287.
13 September 2019: The Return is released, reading "Ninja Tune". Barcodes 5054429138085 and 5054429138092, catalogue numbers ZENCD258 and ZENDNL258. It goes on to win the Australian Music Prize.
26 April 2022: the single "Lane" becomes the FIRST release in the catalogue to name Sampa The Great Pty Ltd, as owner, under exclusive licence to Loma Vista Recordings. The gap between registration and first credit is four years and eight months.
9 September 2022: As Above So Below, same structure. 12 May 2023: deluxe edition, same structure.
19 September 2025: "GOAT" is released reading Universal Studios as owner, under licence to Loma Vista. 14 November 2025: "Can't Hold Us" returns to the Sampa The Great Pty Ltd structure.
10 September 2026: the album is announced and the lead single "Simon Says" is dated, on Loma Vista, UPC 888072818729.
30 October 2026: Nu Zamrock is released, 16 tracks, owner Sampa The Great Pty Ltd, exclusive licensee Loma Vista Recordings.
As at 21 October 2026 the credit lines on all of the above are as stated. Consideration, term and territory remain undisclosed throughout.
- Type
- Licensing
- Parties
- Sampa The Great Pty Ltd, Loma Vista Recordings, Ninja Tune, Big Dada
- Amount
- Not disclosed Not disclosed
- Rights covered
- SOUND RECORDING RIGHTS ONLY. NO transfer of copyright is evidenced by any source checked, and none should be reported.
OWNERSHIP. Sampa The Great Pty Ltd (ABN 30 620 975 082, ACN 620 975 082, Melbourne) is the named claimant of the phonographic copyright in Nu Zamrock (30 October 2026, 16 tracks), As Above So Below (9 September 2022), its deluxe edition (12 May 2023), and the singles "Lane" (26 April 2022) and "Can't Hold Us" (14 November 2025).
LICENCE. Loma Vista Recordings is named as EXCLUSIVE LICENSEE on each of those releases, with the credit appending "A Concord Label Group Release". An exclusive licence permits exploitation for a term in a territory and does not move the copyright. Term, territory, royalty rate, advance, option count and recoupment are ALL undisclosed.
PRIOR OWNERSHIP, UNCHANGED. Big Dada is the unqualified named claimant on Birds and the BEE9 (10 November 2017) and on the singles "Rhymes to the East" and "Bye River". Ninja Tune is the unqualified named claimant on The Return (13 September 2019), "Final Form" (2019) and "Time's Up (Remix)" (2020). Nothing read for this record shows those recordings changing hands. This record does NOT establish that the artist has recovered ownership of her 2017 to 2020 catalogue.
ONE EXCEPTION TO THE PATTERN. The single "GOAT" (19 September 2025) reads "Universal Studios, under license to Loma Vista Recordings". On that recording the named owner is a film studio and Sampa The Great Pty Ltd is not named at all.
PUBLISHING: NOT ESTABLISHED, and the cause is blocked access rather than documented absence. On 21 October 2026 from this desk: ASCAP repertory HTTP 403; APRA AMCOS HTTP 403; PRS for Music repertoire search HTTP 404; The MLC public work search resolved only to its application shell and its API host was unreachable; the United States Copyright Office public records API was unreachable. No publisher or administrator is named on any release read, and no publishing announcement naming her was located. Do NOT infer a publisher from the word Concord in the phonogram line.
- Territory
- Worldwide release. No contractual territory is stated anywhere. Apple returns the album in the United States storefront and Deezer carries the campaign singles without territorial restriction, but a worldwide release does not prove a worldwide grant: a grant whose territory has simply never been published is equally consistent with the evidence. No territory carve-out and no exclusion is disclosed.
The parties sit in three jurisdictions: the owner is an Australian private company with a Melbourne business location, the licensee label is United States based, and the artist is Zambian. No source states which entity contracts with which, or under which governing law.
- Announced
- 2026-09-10
- Primary document
- Rights registry
- Sources
- Apple catalogue record for Sampa the Great, "Nu Zamrock", collectionId 6800037021: copyright line "℗ 2026 Sampa The Great Pty Ltd., Under exclusive license to Loma Vista Recordings. A Concord Label Group Release.", releaseDate 2026-10-30T07:00:00Z, trackCount 16, artistId 1026842498. Fetched and read directly by this desk on 21 October 2026, HTTP 200. Corroborated against the Deezer album API, MusicBrainz, the Australian Business Register and UK Companies House. · Australian Business Register record, the official Australian government register, read 21 October 2026, HTTP 200. Entity Name "SAMPA THE GREAT PTY LTD". ABN 30 620 975 082. ABN Status "Active from 12 Aug 2017". Entity Type "Australian Private Company". ACN 620 975 082. GST "Registered from 12 Aug 2017". Main Business Location "VIC 3000". No trading or business names listed. Record shown as last updated 09 Jan 2026. No officeholder or shareholding detail is carried at this level. · Australian Business Register name search, read 21 October 2026, HTTP 200. Twelve active matches returned. Exactly one, SAMPA THE GREAT PTY LTD (ABN 30 620 975 082, 3000 VIC), is recorded as an Entity Name; the remainder are trading names, business names or unrelated entities with similar spellings. · Apple catalogue lookup for artistId 1026842498 (Sampa the Great), read 21 October 2026, HTTP 200. Returns 41 release objects with their copyright fields. The ownership trail in full: "℗ 2017 Big Dada" on Birds and the BEE9 (2017-11-10), "Rhymes to the East" and "Bye River"; "℗ 2019 Ninja Tune" on The Return (2019-09-13) and "Final Form"; "℗ 2020 Ninja Tune" on "Time's Up (Remix)"; then "℗ 2022 Sampa The Great Pty Ltd., under exclusive license to Loma Vista Recordings. A Concord Label Group Release." on "Lane" (2022-04-26) and As Above So Below (2022-09-09), the same on the 2023 deluxe edition and on "Can't Hold Us" (2025-11-14). Also returns "℗ 2015 Sampa The Great" on "F E M A L E" and "℗ 2017 Sampa The Great" on four Red Bull era singles, both of which predate or straddle the 12 August 2017 company registration and cannot be read as naming the company. · Deezer album API, read 21 October 2026, HTTP 200. Independent second registry corroborating the label chain and the barcodes: Birds And The BEE9, label "Big Dada", UPC 5054429121131, release_date 2017-11-10; The Return, label "Ninja Tune", UPC 5054429138092, release_date 2019-09-13; As Above So Below, label "Loma Vista Recordings", UPC 888072447660, release_date 2022-09-09; As Above So Below (Deluxe), label "Loma Vista Recordings", UPC 888072531338, release_date 2023-05-12; Simon Says, label "Loma Vista Recordings", UPC 888072818729, release_date 2026-09-10. Deezer's label field records the releasing label and is NOT a statement of ownership, which is why the Apple copyright field is the operative source for the ownership claim. · MusicBrainz rights registry query, read 21 October 2026, HTTP 200, 36 releases matched. Supplies the catalogue numbers: Big Dada BDDNL287 on Birds and the BEE9; Ninja Tune ZENCD258 and ZENDNL258 on The Return (barcodes 5054429138085 and 5054429138092); Ninja Tune ZENDNLS516 on Final Form (5054429137927); Loma Vista Recordings LVR02896 on As Above So Below (888072451940); Loma Vista on Simon Says dated 2026-09-10 (00888072818736) and on Nu Zamrock dated 2026-10-30. Also records two earlier releases, Black Dignity (2016) and The Great Mixtape, on the Melbourne label Wondercore Island, and attributes the 2017 Red Bull era singles to Red Bull Media House NA and Red Bull Sound Select, which is a release credit and not an ownership claim: the copyright field on those same singles reads Sampa The Great. · UK Companies House public register search, read 21 October 2026. NINJA TUNE LIMITED, 04770301, Active, incorporated 19 May 2003. NINJA TUNE RECORDS LTD, 04926214, Active, incorporated 8 October 2003. NINJA TUNE HOLDINGS LIMITED, 10713956, Active, incorporated 6 April 2017. NINJA TUNE PRODUCTION MUSIC LIMITED, 11091592, Dissolved 6 November 2018, incorporated 1 December 2017. All three active companies share the registered office "Loom Court Concord, 12 Fleur De Lis Street, London, United Kingdom, E1 6BP". · UK Companies House company record for NINJA TUNE LIMITED, read 21 October 2026. Private limited Company, Active, incorporated 19 May 2003, SIC 90030 artistic creation, last accounts filed to 31 December 2025, next accounts due 30 September 2027. No previous names listed. · UK Companies House public register search, read 21 October 2026. NO record company is registered under the name Big Dada. The matches returned are STUDIONEURAL LIMITED (12125298), BIG DADA'S SELBY LIMITED (13576937, dissolved 7 June 2022, Leeds) and BRIJ'S FOOD DADA LTD (09957936, dissolved 17 March 2026, Leeds). The absence of a company of that name is recorded here as an absence. · UK Companies House company record for STUDIONEURAL LIMITED, read 21 October 2026. Active, incorporated 26 July 2019, SIC codes 59113 television programme production activities, 82301 activities of exhibition and fair organisers, 90030 artistic creation. Previous name: BIG DADA LTD, 26 July 2019 to 2 February 2026. It postdates the 2017 release by two years and is NOT asserted to be the record label. · The licensee label's own website, a named party, read 21 October 2026. Carries the Nu Zamrock campaign and quotes her: "Zamrock is my sound. It's my voice. Being Zambian, being loud, being defiant, that's what Zamrock is." Describes her as "reimagining Zamrock, that daring fusion of rock, funk, and African rhythm, through her own lens, merging it with hip-hop, poetry, and soul to create Nu Zamrock", and as releasing music "via Loma Vista Recordings". It does NOT state a signing, a licence, a term, a territory or an ownership position, and it names no publisher. concord.com was not reachable from this desk.
Read this before citing: WHAT THIS RECORD DOES AND DOES NOT ESTABLISH. Owns, administers, distributes and licenses are four different legal relationships and this record exists to keep them apart.
OWNS: Sampa The Great Pty Ltd is the named claimant of the sound recording copyright on Nu Zamrock, As Above So Below, the As Above So Below deluxe edition, "Lane" and "Can't Hold Us". A phonographic line is a claim of ownership printed by the party making it and delivered to the stores by the rights holder. It is the best public evidence available and it is not a contract. It discloses no term, no territory and no consideration.
OWNS (earlier catalogue): Big Dada is the named claimant on Birds and the BEE9 (2017) and on the singles "Rhymes to the East" and "Bye River". Ninja Tune is the named claimant on The Return (2019), "Final Form" (2019) and "Time's Up (Remix)" (2020). Both credits are unqualified. Nothing read for this record shows those recordings changing hands, and this record does NOT establish that she has recovered ownership of them. The 2022 change applies to new recordings on the evidence available.
LICENSES: Loma Vista Recordings holds an exclusive licence over the recordings it is named on. An exclusive licence permits exploitation for a term in a territory; it does not transfer copyright. Term, territory, rate and advance are all undisclosed.
DISTRIBUTES: not established for any party. No distributor is named in any credit line read for this record. Do not report Concord, Universal or any other company as the distributor of Nu Zamrock on the strength of this record.
ADMINISTERS: not established for anything. See the publishing paragraph. Four repertory or registry systems were unreachable from this desk and the gap is a gap in access, not a finding that no publisher exists.
CONSIDERATION: not disclosed, anywhere, for anything. "Not disclosed" is the answer.
CONTRADICTIONS, DIVERGENCES AND LIMITS, recorded rather than smoothed over.
1. Metadata is current, not historical. Apple and Deezer return today's credit strings. This record establishes what the lines read on 21 October 2026. It does NOT establish what the 2017 or 2019 releases read at the time they came out, and a credit line can be redelivered. The 2017 and 2019 ownership claims are therefore claims as they stand today over recordings released then.
2. One release in the catalogue carries a copyright year that does not match its release date: "o.Y.o" is dated 2019 and reads "℗ 2026 Babel Entertainment". That is a redelivery under a later claim, it concerns a third-party release on which she is a featured artist, and it is noted here only so that nobody reads it as part of her own ownership trail.
3. "Simon Says", the lead single, is carried differently by two registries. Deezer returns it as a standalone single dated 10 September 2026 with UPC 888072818729 and label "Loma Vista Recordings", and MusicBrainz carries a Loma Vista release of the same name dated 10 September 2026 with barcode 00888072818736. Apple's search no longer surfaces it as a separate product and returns it only as track 4 of Nu Zamrock. Two different barcodes and a vanished single product are consistent with ordinary multi-product campaign delivery. They are NOT a conflict about ownership: no registry read for this record names any owner of these recordings other than Sampa The Great Pty Ltd.
4. The corporate relationship between Big Dada and Ninja Tune is not established by a primary document. It is asserted in trade coverage and on the imprint's own site, variously as an imprint, a sub-label and a sister label. Ninja Tune's own label page for Big Dada returned HTTP 404 to this desk. The shared 5054429 barcode prefix across both imprints' releases in this catalogue is the harder evidence and is the only basis on which the two are linked here.
5. A FALSE LEAD THAT ANYONE REPEATING THE SEARCH WILL HIT. The registered office of all three active Ninja Tune companies is recorded on the UK register as "Loom Court Concord, 12 Fleur De Lis Street, London, United Kingdom, E1 6BP". The word Concord in that string is part of a London building address. It has NO established connection to Concord, the United States music company named in the Loma Vista credit line. Do not connect them.
6. Her Zamrock lineage is her own account, not a registry fact. The album campaign carries her statement that her uncle, George Kunda, known as Groovy Joe, was a founding member of the Zambian band WITCH. No rights registry or company register read for this record carries that relationship, and this desk did not verify it. It is reported as her statement.
7. The Zamrock catalogue the album draws on is owned elsewhere, and separately. WITCH's 2023 album Zango reads "℗ 2023 Desert Daze Sound", and "JOY (Life Goes On)" (2024), on which Sampa features, reads "℗ 2024 Partisan Records". Those are claims over those specific recordings by those parties. Nothing here establishes who owns the original 1970s Zamrock masters, and no such claim is made.
8. The shareholding and directors of Sampa The Great Pty Ltd are not established. The Australian Business Register entry read for this record carries no officeholder data.
9. Not reached for comment: Sampa Tembo, Sampa The Great Pty Ltd, Loma Vista Recordings, Concord, Ninja Tune and Big Dada. No allegation of wrongdoing is made or supported by anything in this record. Every relationship described here is an ordinary and lawful commercial structure.
All catalogue and register sources listed on this record were fetched and read on 21 October 2026 and each returned HTTP 200 unless a different code is stated.
On 30 October 2026 Sampa Tembo, the Zambian rapper and singer who records as Sampa the Great, releases her third album Nu Zamrock, sixteen tracks built on the Zambian psychedelic rock movement of the 1970s. The phonographic copyright line on it reads, verbatim: “℗ 2026 Sampa The Great Pty Ltd., Under exclusive license to Loma Vista Recordings. A Concord Label Group Release.”
That single string is the deal. The owner of the sound recording is an Australian private company. The label is the licensee. Nothing in the credit conveys the copyright to the label, and no source fetched for this record discloses any consideration.
The company behind the credit
SAMPA THE GREAT PTY LTD is recorded on the Australian Business Register under ABN 30 620 975 082 and ACN 620 975 082, as an Australian Private Company, with an ABN active from 12 August 2017, GST registration from the same date, a main business location of VIC 3000 in central Melbourne, and an entry last updated on 9 January 2026. The register name search returns twelve active matches for “Sampa The Great”, of which exactly one is an entity name rather than a trading or business name, and that is this company.
The register does not carry officeholder or shareholding detail at this level, and no paid ASIC company extract was purchased for this record. Who holds the shares and who the directors are is therefore NOT established here. The company name and the credit line are consistent with an artist-owned vehicle, and that is the ordinary reading, but it is not a documented one.
The four-year gap
The company was registered on 12 August 2017. The first release in her catalogue on which it appears is the single “Lane”, dated 26 April 2022. That is a gap of four years and eight months, and for the whole of it her recordings were credited to somebody else.
Her 2017 album Birds and the BEE9 was released on 10 November 2017, three months after the company was registered, and its phonogram line reads “℗ 2017 Big Dada”. Her 2019 album The Return, which won the Australian Music Prize, reads “℗ 2019 Ninja Tune”. Neither credit carries any licence wording and neither names the artist or any company of hers. On their face both are claims of ownership of those recordings by the label, not of a licence over them.
From April 2022 the pattern inverts and has held since: As Above, So Below (9 September 2022), its deluxe edition (12 May 2023), the single “Can’t Hold Us” (14 November 2025) and Nu Zamrock (30 October 2026) all name Sampa The Great Pty Ltd as owner and Loma Vista Recordings as exclusive licensee. The ownership of her new recordings moved from the label side of the line to her side of it between The Return and As Above, So Below. No party announced that, and no document fetched for this record explains it.
What the barcodes show about the two earlier labels
The 2017 and 2019 credits name two different imprints, but the products were registered through the same barcode prefix. Birds and the BEE9 carries barcode 5054429121131 and catalogue number BDDNL287. The Return carries 5054429138085 and 5054429138092, catalogue numbers ZENCD258 and ZENDNL258. The single “Final Form” carries 5054429137927 (ZENDNLS516) and “Time’s Up (Remix)” carries 5054429144000. All of them sit in the 5054429 GS1 prefix. A shared prefix identifies the party that registered the products.
No UK company is registered under the name Big Dada as a record business. A search of the UK register returns STUDIONEURAL LIMITED, number 12125298, which carried the previous name BIG DADA LTD from 26 July 2019 to 2 February 2026; it was incorporated two years after the release, is classified in television programme production, and is NOT asserted here to be the label. Three Ninja Tune companies are active on the UK register: NINJA TUNE LIMITED (04770301, incorporated 19 May 2003), NINJA TUNE RECORDS LTD (04926214, 8 October 2003) and NINJA TUNE HOLDINGS LIMITED (10713956, 6 April 2017). Which of them holds the copyright in The Return could not be established, because a credit line names a trading identity and not a company number.
The one release she does not own
One release in the Loma Vista period inverts the structure and must not be read as part of it. The single “GOAT”, dated 19 September 2025, reads “℗ 2025 Universal Studios, under license to Loma Vista Recordings. A Concord Label Group Release.” On that recording the named owner is a film studio, Loma Vista is again the licensee, and Sampa The Great Pty Ltd is not named at all. Anyone stating that she owns every master in her recent catalogue would be wrong on this one.
Publishing: not established
Who owns or administers the compositions on Nu Zamrock, or on anything else in her catalogue, could NOT be established, and the reason is access rather than absence. From this desk on 21 October 2026: ASCAP’s repertory returned HTTP 403; APRA AMCOS, the Australian society that would be the obvious registrant given a Melbourne company, returned HTTP 403; the PRS for Music repertoire search returned HTTP 404; The MLC’s public work search resolved only to its single-page application shell and its API host was unreachable; and the United States Copyright Office public records API was not reachable either. No publisher or administrator is named on any release page read for this record, and no publishing announcement naming her was located. A masters credit says nothing about publishing, and no publisher should be inferred from the Concord wording in the phonogram line: Concord operates a publishing arm, and nothing fetched here connects it to her songs.
Consideration
Not disclosed, for anything on this record. No advance, royalty rate, term, option count, territory carve-out or recoupment arrangement appears in any source. Loma Vista’s own website carries the Nu Zamrock campaign and describes her as releasing music “via Loma Vista Recordings”; it does not describe a signing, a licence, a term or an ownership position anywhere in the content fetched. The label’s public language is silent on the structure that its own delivered metadata states.
