Deal sheet
- Status
- Unresolved conflict in live registry metadata. No transaction is documented.
- Type
- Distribution,Licensing
- Parties
- Alapomeji Ancestral Records, Tjoe Records
- Rights covered
- Master recordings (sound recording copyright, the \xe2\x84\x97 line) on 9ice's Bashorun Gaa and, as wider pattern, on Versus (The Battle Line is Drawn), Tradition and Gongo Aso. Publishing is not addressed.
- Territory
- Not disclosed on any credit. Products are registered for Nigeria and worldwide across the editions read.
- Announced
- 2011-12-12
- Primary document
- Rights registry
- Sources
- Apple catalogue record for collectionId 488753337, Bashorun Gaa, 18 tracks, releaseDate 2011-12-12, copyright string "\xe2\x84\x97 2011 Tjoe Records". Fetched by this desk on 23 October 2026, HTTP 200. · Apple catalogue record for collectionId 1712491521, Bashorun Gaa, 18 tracks, releaseDate 2011-12-12, copyright string "℗ 2011 AAR". Near-identical tracklist to collection 488753337. Fetched 23 October 2026, HTTP 200. · Apple iTunes Search API, Nigerian storefront, 49 results, all phonographic copyright lines for the catalogue. Fetched 23 October 2026, HTTP 200. · Apple iTunes Search API, United States storefront, 50 results, cross-check against the Nigerian storefront. Fetched 23 October 2026, HTTP 200. · Deezer album API, artist 1539994 (9ice): Certificate, Certificate (Reloaded), Gongo Aso, Tradition, Tradition (Reloaded), Versus, Versus (The Battle Line is Drawn) and Bashorun Gaa, each with label field and UPC. Fetched 23 October 2026, HTTP 200. · Deezer tracklist for Bashorun Gaa (Tjoe Records, UPC 886788371323): Pace Setter, Everyday, My Number, 3310 and 14 further tracks. Fetched 23 October 2026, HTTP 200. · Deezer tracklist for Versus (AAR, UPC 859715973907), 18 solo tracks including Life Is Beautiful, Good Day and On Point: a different body of work from Versus (The Battle Line is Drawn), not a duplicate credit of it. Fetched 23 October 2026, HTTP 200. · Deezer tracklist for Versus (The Battle Line is Drawn) (Tjoe Records, UPC 198391121524), 16 tracks entirely in the "9ice vs [artist]" format. Fetched 23 October 2026, HTTP 200. · MusicBrainz release search with label info for artist eaaae1cd-1307-4e79-8b3f-ba27bf3b9aee (9ice), 8 releases: Certificate (2007-03-15, no label-info), Versus: The Battle Line is Drawn (2011-12-12, Tjoe Records), Versus (The Battle Line is Drawn) (2011-12-12, no label-info), Versus: The Battle Line is Drawn (2015-12-30, Alapomeji Ancestral Records), Gongo Aso (2008, Alapomeji Records, cat AP CD 04), G.R.A (2014-12-07, no label-info), Bashorun Gaa (2015-12-30, no label-info), Tradition (2009-12-05, Alapomeji Records). Fetched 23 October 2026, HTTP 200. · Discogs release record for Gongo Aso: label Alapomeji Records, catalogue number AP CD 04, released 2008. Fetched 23 October 2026, HTTP 200. · Music In Africa trade directory profile for T-Joe Records & Distribution Limited, Lagos, Nigeria, naming 9ice directly in its artist roster alongside P-Square, Timaya, Bracket, J Martins, Sammy Okposo, Ebiere and the Plantashun Boiz. Profile dated 20 August 2014. Fetched via Wayback Machine 23 October 2026, HTTP 200. · UK Companies House register search for "Alapomeji": "No results found". Fetched 23 October 2026, HTTP 200. · UK Companies House register search for "Tjoe": "No results found". Fetched 23 October 2026, HTTP 200.
Read this before citing: RIGHTS LANGUAGE, PRECISELY. OWNS: no document read for this record names an unqualified, uncontested owner of the Bashorun Gaa, Versus (The Battle Line is Drawn), Tradition or Gongo Aso masters. Two companies are each named phonogram owner, with no licence qualifier, on competing live editions of the same recordings. ALSO CLAIMS TO OWN: Tjoe Records is named owner on Apple collection 488753337 (Bashorun Gaa, 12 December 2011) and on the Deezer and Apple editions of Versus (The Battle Line is Drawn), same date. AAR (Alapomeji Ancestral Records) is named owner on Apple collection 1712491521, an 18-track Bashorun Gaa with the same release date and near-identical tracklist, and on the MusicBrainz release-group entry for Versus: The Battle Line is Drawn dated 30 December 2015. ADMINISTERS: not established for any title read. DISTRIBUTES: not established; no distributor, as distinct from label, is named on any credit line read for this record. LICENSES: not established; no credit line read uses licence wording. || CONTRADICTIONS, UNRESOLVED. (1) Apple carries two live collections of Bashorun Gaa, same title, same 18-track count, same 12 December 2011 release date, one credited to Tjoe Records and one to AAR, both resolving on 23 October 2026. (2) The two Bashorun Gaa tracklists are near-identical, not merely same-titled: 15 of 18 track titles are character-for-character identical and the remaining three differ only by minor spelling (My Number/Mu Number, Adigun Ojowon'lo/Adigun Ojuwonlo, So Fun'won/So Fun Won), consistent with two separate metadata ingestions of one recording, not two different recordings. (3) Deezer's catalogue for this artist carries only the Tjoe Records edition of Bashorun Gaa and has no AAR duplicate; Apple carries both. The registries disagree not only on the credit but on whether a duplicate exists. (4) MusicBrainz independently carries Versus: The Battle Line is Drawn twice, once dated 12 December 2011 under Tjoe Records and once dated 30 December 2015 under Alapomeji Ancestral Records, a second entry four years later for what both Apple and Deezer treat as a single 2011 release. (5) Tradition carries a reversed pattern: Apple's Alapomeji Records-credited entry is dated 5 December 2009, nine months after its AAR-credited entry is dated, 15 March 2009, for the same title. MusicBrainz corroborates only the Alapomeji Records date and credit; it does not carry an AAR entry for Tradition at all. (6) Gongo Aso: MusicBrainz and Discogs both independently credit the original 2008 Nigerian CD, catalogue AP CD 04, to Alapomeji Records; the live Apple and Deezer digital editions of the same title today read AAR, with no reissue note on either storefront. || NOT ESTABLISHED. No sale, assignment, licence, reversion or renaming of any 9ice masters between Alapomeji Records, Alapomeji Ancestral Records (AAR) and Tjoe Records is documented in any source read. No party has issued a statement about any such transfer. The UK Companies House register was searched directly for "Alapomeji" and for "Tjoe" on 23 October 2026 (find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk, both HTTP 200) and returned "No results found" for both. Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission publishes no searchable public register this desk can query, so the UK absence is NOT evidence that either company is unregistered in Nigeria, only that this desk could not check the Nigerian register. Secondary sources (Wikipedia, Wikidata) describe 9ice founding the original Alapomeji Records in 2008 and renaming it Alapomeji Ancestral Records in 2015; this desk has not independently verified either date against a primary document and the dating above relies only on dated registry entries actually fetched. A 2007 phonogram credit for the album Certificate, reported in secondary sources to have originally been released on Edge Records, could not be checked against any registry: MusicBrainz's Certificate release carries no label-info value at all, so no independent corroboration or contradiction of the current AAR credit on that title exists in any registry checked.
What the documents say
Two live Apple Music catalogue entries carry the same 9ice album, the same release date and an almost identical tracklist, and they name different owners of the recordings.
Entry one. Apple collection 488753337, titled Bashorun Gaa, 18 tracks, release date 12 December 2011. The phonographic copyright line reads ℗ 2011 Tjoe Records. Track 3 is “My Number”, track 8 is “Adigun Ojowon’lo”, track 16 is “So Fun’won”.
Entry two. Apple collection 1712491521, also titled Bashorun Gaa, also 18 tracks, same release date, 12 December 2011. The phonographic copyright line reads ℗ 2011 AAR (Alapomeji Ancestral Records). Track 3 is “Mu Number”, track 8 is “Adigun Ojuwonlo”, track 16 is “So Fun Won”. Every other track title across both 18-track listings is identical, in the same running order: Pace Setter, Everyday, 3310, Ori Olowo, Attitude, Simple Strategy, I Rule, Shakashiki, Display, Enife, Omo, Takoto, We Are Ready, Don’t Go, Buje Budanu. The spelling variants on three tracks read as two separate metadata ingestions of the same recordings, not two different bodies of work.
Deezer’s catalogue for 9ice (artist 1539994) carries only one Bashorun Gaa, album 1398234, label Tjoe Records, UPC 886788371323. It has no AAR-credited duplicate of this title. One registry shows the split; the other shows only one side of it.
The pattern repeats on two more titles
Versus (The Battle Line is Drawn), 9ice’s other December 2011 release, shows the same kind of split across registries rather than within one. Apple collection 1729651652 and Deezer album 545062332 (UPC 198391121524, 16 tracks, every track title in the “9ice vs” format: 9ice vs 2face Idibia, 9ice vs Vip, 9ice vs Banky W) both read ℗ 2011 Tjoe Records. MusicBrainz, searched independently, carries this same title twice: once dated 12 December 2011 under Tjoe Records, and a second release-group entry dated 30 December 2015 under Alapomeji Ancestral Records, four years after the first. 9ice’s Bashorun Gaa release-group entry on MusicBrainz is also dated 30 December 2015, not December 2011, though no label value is attached to it.
Tradition, from 2009, shows a third variant of the same pattern. Apple carries two entries: collection 343694071, dated 5 December 2009, reading ℗ 2009 Alapomeji Records; and collection 1895628717, dated 15 March 2009 (nine months earlier), reading ℗ 2009 AAR. MusicBrainz independently corroborates the Alapomeji Records side: its Tradition release is dated 5 December 2009 and credited to Alapomeji Records, matching the Apple entry that does not carry the AAR credit.
Gongo Aso, 2008, follows the same shape again. Both MusicBrainz and Discogs, checked independently, credit the original Nigerian CD, catalogue number AP CD 04, to Alapomeji Records. The live Apple and Deezer digital entries for the same title today both read ℗ 2008 AAR instead, with no reissue note on either storefront.
Who the two companies are
Tjoe Records, listed in a trade directory as T-Joe Records & Distribution Limited, describes itself as a Lagos label and physical distributor and names 9ice directly in its own roster, alongside P-Square, Timaya, Bracket, J Martins, Sammy Okposo, Ebiere and the Plantashun Boiz. That listing was last updated in 2014 and this desk did not verify that the company is still operating.
AAR is the credit on nearly all of 9ice’s catalogue today, from the 2007 album Certificate through to the single “Olodumare” on 25 September 2025. A single dated 19 August 2022, “Aye Labowo”, spells the credit out in full as ALAPOMEJI ANCESTRAL RECORDS, which is the only place in any registry checked that the abbreviation is written in full.
What is NOT established
No sale, assignment, licence, reversion or renaming of any 9ice masters between Alapomeji Records, Alapomeji Ancestral Records and Tjoe Records is documented in any source read for this record. No party has issued a statement about it. The UK Companies House register was searched directly for both “Alapomeji” and “Tjoe” on 23 October 2026 and returned no results for either name. Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission publishes no searchable public register, so the absence from the UK register is not evidence that either company is unregistered in Nigeria, only that this desk could not check. Secondary sources describe 9ice founding the original Alapomeji Records in 2008 and renaming it Alapomeji Ancestral Records in 2015; this desk has not independently verified either date against a primary document and does not rely on them above.
