Deal sheet
- Status
- Announced 2 September 2025 in trade press, and again on 3 September 2025 in a second trade outlet. The one-day discrepancy between the two publication dates is recorded; the earlier is used as the announced date. Not announced on West Night Publishing's own newsroom, whose five listed items as read on 22 October 2026 do not mention Yaw Tog. CHRONOLOGY OF THE MASTER CREDIT, from two registries: 3 September 2020 "Sore", owner named as Yaw Tog personally. 18 December 2020 "Y33gye", KooPokuStudios, UPC already in EMPIRE's 194690 registration block. 4 and 25 March 2021 "Sore (Remix)" and TIME, KOOPOKUSTUDIOS / EMPIRE. 3 November 2021 to 18 April 2024, eight releases, TOGLIFE MUSIC / EMPIRE. 14 February to 22 May 2025, three singles on which Apple names Yaw Tog personally and Deezer names the TogLife imprint: an unresolved registry conflict. 28 November 2024 "Okafuo", TogLife Music / ONErpm, the first release after which EMPIRE never appears again. 2 September 2025, the publishing announcement. 17 October 2025, Tog City: "Tog Life Music, under exclusive license to Cee The Panther Ltd / ONErpm", the first licence wording in the catalogue, six weeks after the publishing announcement. 12 June 2026 "For My Killys", CEE THE PANTHER / ONErpm, the licensee now named alone as owner. 9 October 2026 AKATAPIANO, TogLife Records, no second party named.
- Type
- Licensing, Publishing
- Parties
- West Night Publishing, Tog Life Music, Cee The Panther Ltd, EMPIRE, ONErpm
- Amount
- Not disclosed
- Rights covered
- PUBLISHING, ADMINISTRATION ONLY. West Night Publishing takes the administration of Yaw Tog's publishing, the collection of his royalties and the licensing of his works. Both trade reports describe a mandate to administer, collect and license. Neither states a transfer of copyright, a catalogue share, an assignment or a reversion, and no document read for this record states that West Night owns any part of his songs. The number of works covered is not stated. The term is not stated. Whether the mandate covers existing works, future works or both is not stated. MASTERS ARE NOT IN THIS DEAL. The sound recordings are credited separately: Tog Life Music is the named phonogram owner from 3 November 2021, and from 17 October 2025 the EP Tog City carries an exclusive licence from Tog Life Music to Cee The Panther Ltd. That licence was announced by nobody and is a separate arrangement from this publishing mandate.
- Territory
- Africa and, in the wording of both reports, abroad and globally. No contractual territory, carve-out or excluded market is disclosed. Note separately that West Night holds sub-publishing arrangements covering the United States and Canada (Cleerkut Royalty) and Europe (Back2da Future Music), neither of which names Yaw Tog and both of which predate or are undated relative to his signing.
- Announced
- 2025-09-02
- Primary document
- Trade press
- Sources
- Primary document is the trade report of the signing, fetched 22 October 2026, HTTP 200. Corroborated by a second trade report of the same announcement dated 3 September 2025, HTTP 200. The master-side chain is not from either report: it is read directly from two rights registries, the Apple iTunes lookup endpoint for artistId 1530966648 (47 release objects) and the Deezer album search for artist:"Yaw Tog" (65 unique album objects), both HTTP 200 on 22 October 2026, cross-checked on UPC. West Night Publishing's self-description, address, newsroom item headlines and the absence of a founding year are from the company's own site, HTTP 200. The Cleerkut Royalty sub-publishing arrangement is from a trade report dated 22 May 2025 and a press release dated 3 June 2025. Negative findings from the Companies House public name search and from MusicBrainz are recorded in the body. · Second trade report of the same announcement, dated 3 September 2025, one day later than the first · Rights registry: 47 release objects with phonographic copyright lines, read 22 October 2026 · Rights registry: 65 unique album objects with label strings and UPCs, independent corroboration of the credit chain · Rights registry: one Yaw Tog release only (TIME, 25 March 2021), labels EMPIRE and KOOPOKUSTUDIOS · West Night Publishing homepage: Accra address, administrator self-description, no founding year, no legal suffix, no registration number · West Night Publishing newsroom: launch item dated 27 March 2023, and no item on the Yaw Tog signing · Formation announcement dated 27 March 2023, and Iddrisu's twelve years at Sheer Publishing Africa · Cleerkut Royalty sub-publishing for the United States and Canada, reported 22 May 2025, no term or consideration stated · Press release on the same Cleerkut arrangement, dated 3 June 2025 · Negative finding: no United Kingdom company named Cee The Panther Ltd or Cee The Panther Limited · Negative finding: no United Kingdom company named Tog Life Music or TogLife
Read this before citing: This record documents two separate things and does not merge them. The publishing mandate to West Night Publishing is sourced to trade press and to on-the-record quotes from both parties. The master-side chain, including the exclusive licence to Cee The Panther Ltd, is sourced only to phonographic copyright lines in two rights registries: no party announced it, no contract was read, and a credit line states a structure rather than its economics. The six-week interval between the publishing announcement and the first appearance of licence wording on the masters is a sequence, not a causal link, and nothing read here connects the two arrangements. Cee The Panther Ltd could not be found in any company register this desk could search, and no country, owner or corporate form is asserted for it. Ownership of Tog Life Music could not be established and is not attributed to Yaw Tog. The publisher of record for his compositions could not be established because the collecting society repertory searches were unreachable, not because no publisher exists.
On 2 September 2025 it was reported that Yaw Tog, the Kumasi rapper whose legal name is Thorsten Owusu Gyimah, had signed a publishing agreement with West Night Publishing, the administrator run by Seidu Iddrisu from an address in East Legon, Accra. A second trade report carried the same announcement on 3 September 2025.
What the agreement covers, in the language of both reports, is administration: West Night will handle the administration of his publishing, the collection of his royalties and the licensing of his works, in Africa and beyond it. That is a mandate, not a sale. No source read for this record states that West Night acquired a copyright, a catalogue share or any reversionary interest in his songs. Term, consideration and the number of works covered are stated nowhere.
The quotes are on the record from both sides. Yaw Tog: “This is an important step in my journey. I want my music to carry Ghana’s voice further, and with the right support, I can focus fully on creating and sharing my story.” Iddrisu, identified as chief executive: “Yaw Tog represents the new generation of Ghanaian artists shaping global sounds.”
What the announcement did not cover
Publishing and masters are separate assets, and only one of them was announced. The sound recordings are credited elsewhere, and the credit changed six weeks after the publishing announcement.
Reading the phonographic copyright lines in release order, from the Apple catalogue for artistId 1530966648 and independently from the Deezer album objects for the same releases:
“Sore”, 3 September 2020, reads “℗ 2020 Yaw Tog”. The owner named is the artist personally, with no company and no imprint. Deezer carries the label for that release as “Yaw Tog”, UPC 758869735884.
“Y33gye”, 18 December 2020, reads “℗ 2020 KooPokuStudios”. Its UPC is 194690401961.
“Sore (Remix)”, 4 March 2021, and the EP TIME, 25 March 2021, both read “℗ 2021 KOOPOKUSTUDIOS / EMPIRE”. UPCs 194690441417 and 194690441394.
From “Sei Mu” on 3 November 2021 through the album Young & Matured on 18 April 2024, eight releases read “℗ TOGLIFE MUSIC / EMPIRE”. UPCs 194690662478, 194690779831, 194690904608, 194690966804, then 197342224079, 197342397230, 197342528153 and 197342540827.
“Okafuo”, 28 November 2024, reads “℗ 2024 TogLife Music / ONErpm”, UPC 734284595883. EMPIRE does not appear on any Yaw Tog release after that date.
The EP Tog City, 17 October 2025, seven tracks, UPC 089658286967, reads in full: “℗ 2025 Tog Life Music, under exclusive license to Cee The Panther Ltd / ONErpm”. This is the first licence wording anywhere in the catalogue.
Four 2026 singles read “Tog Life Music / ONErpm”. One, “For My Killys” on 12 June 2026, reads “℗ 2026 CEE THE PANTHER / ONErpm”, with no licence wording and no mention of Tog Life Music. The most recent release, AKATAPIANO on 9 October 2026, UPC 787960951749, reads “℗ 2026 TogLife Records” and names no second party at all.
The barcode prefix
The EMPIRE relationship begins earlier than the credit lines suggest. “Y33gye”, 18 December 2020, names only KooPokuStudios on its copyright line, but its UPC, 194690401961, sits in the same 194690 block as every subsequent KOOPOKUSTUDIOS / EMPIRE and TOGLIFE MUSIC / EMPIRE release, and in the same block as the EMPIRE-branded compilation Where We Come From, Vol. 01, UPC 194690959790, on which Yaw Tog appears. A shared barcode prefix identifies the party that registered the products. On that evidence EMPIRE was already the registrant three months before its name first appeared on a credit.
Where the registries disagree
Three singles in 2025 are credited differently by the two registries. Apple carries “Casamigos” (14 February 2025), “Eboso” (20 March 2025) and “Asem Ben” (22 May 2025) as “℗ 2025 Yaw Tog”, naming the individual. Deezer carries the same three releases with the label field reading “TogLife Music”, “TogLife Music” and “Toglife”, naming the imprint. UPCs 790092409125, 790522608616 and 790569846002 confirm these are the same products. The two registries do not agree on who the copyright owner is, and this record does not resolve the conflict.
What Cee The Panther Ltd is
Not established. The “Ltd” suffix implies a limited company. A Companies House public name search for “cee the panther” returned twenty results and no company of that name, the nearest being THE PANTHERA LABEL LIMITED (13207469) and THE PANTHER GROUP WORLDWIDE LTD (09082609), neither of which this desk connects to the credit. No trade coverage, website, officer or announcement naming the entity was located, and MusicBrainz holds no label entity of that name. Beatport and Qobuz both carry a label page titled with the entire credit string, “Tog Life Music, under exclusive license to Cee the Panther Ltd”, which is a metadata handling artefact of the delivery chain rather than evidence of a label.
No announcement of the Tog City licence was made by any party. The arrangement is visible only because the credit line is public.
The publisher’s own founding date is contradicted
Both trade reports of the signing state that West Night Publishing was “established in 2013”. The company’s own newsroom index carries an item headed “Seidu Iddrisu launches independent music publishing firm” dated 27 March 2023, and a second, “Well known music publisher, Seidu Iddrisu, embarks on a new journey as an independent copyright administrator”, dated 3 April 2023. The company’s homepage carries no founding year, no legal entity suffix and no registration number, and its only published address is in Accra while its domain is a South African one. This desk could not resolve the 2013 and 2023 accounts and records both.
The onward chain, and its limit
West Night has sub-publishing partners outside Africa. A sub-publishing agreement with Cleerkut Royalty, founded by Cheryl M. Potts, covering the United States and Canada was reported on 22 May 2025 and carried in a press release dated 3 June 2025. A European arrangement with Back2da Future Music is listed on West Night’s newsroom without a date. Neither the trade report nor the press release names Yaw Tog, both predate his signing, and neither states a term, a consideration, a works count or a writer count. Nothing read here places his works inside either arrangement, and this record does not assert that it does.
Separately, the five items listed on West Night’s own newsroom index as read on 22 October 2026 do not include the Yaw Tog signing. The administrator has not announced it on its own site.
What could not be established
The publisher of record for Yaw Tog’s compositions. Who is registered against his works at a collecting society, and from what date, is unknown to this desk, and the reason is access rather than absence. The Mechanical Licensing Collective public work search did not resolve from this server. The ASCAP repertory returned HTTP 403. The BMI repertoire search returned an anti-automation challenge rather than data. The PRS for Music repertoire search returned HTTP 404. GHAMRO, the Ghanaian collecting society, timed out. No publishing credit appears on any release page read.
Who owns or controls Tog Life Music. A Companies House name search for “tog life” returned no company of that name, Ghana’s Registrar-General has no public API, and MusicBrainz holds no label entity under any of the imprint’s five name forms. The name and the credit pattern are consistent with an artist-owned imprint, but no document read here names a director, shareholder or owner, and this record does not assert that Yaw Tog owns it.
The relationship behind the names after the slash. On these credit lines the second name is conventionally the distributor, and the second name changed from EMPIRE to ONErpm between April and November 2024. No distribution agreement document from either company covering Yaw Tog was obtained, so the roles are reported as the credit states them and no further.
MusicBrainz coverage of this catalogue is one release deep: a single Yaw Tog release, TIME, dated 25 March 2021, with label entries EMPIRE and KOOPOKUSTUDIOS. It corroborates the 2021 position and nothing after it.
No consideration was disclosed by any party at any point in this chain. Yaw Tog, West Night Publishing, Tog Life Music, Cee The Panther Ltd, EMPIRE, ONErpm and Cleerkut Royalty were not reached for comment. Every structure described here is ordinary and lawful, and no allegation of wrongdoing is made.
