KCee’s Five Star Music Swapped ONErpm for a London Company, Once, in 2024

For five years, every commercial release KCee has put out through his own imprint, Five Star Music, has carried the same distributor name on its phonogram credit line: ONErpm, the independent digital distributor with a Lagos office. Every release, that is, except one. On 15 March 2024, a single titled “Ojapiano (Remix),” pairing the Nigerian singer with the American band OneRepublic, carried a different credit entirely: “Five Star Music & NWS Music Group.” Six weeks later, the next release reverted to ONErpm, and the catalogue has carried nothing but ONErpm, in one wording or another, ever since. Neither Five Star Music nor NWS Music Group, the London independent that is the credit’s other name, has issued a statement explaining the one-release switch.

What this record establishes is the credit line itself, read directly from KCee’s commercial release catalogue and corroborated against a second streaming database, not a disclosed contract between the two companies.

What his own catalogue shows, release by release

Lines read from the Apple Music catalogue lookup for KCee, Apple artist ID 194605362, US storefront, which returns 93 collections credited to him as primary artist across his full career. The table above shows only the releases bearing on this record: the run of ONErpm credits before and after the anomaly, the anomaly itself, and the two releases naming no distributor at all. Features on other artists’ releases, and a separate, unrelated catalogue of releases by different artists also using some variant of the name “Kcee,” were checked against this artist ID and excluded.

One release, two companies, no announcement

Deezer’s own catalogue corroborates the switch independently of Apple. The Deezer album entry for “Ojapiano (Remix)” (Deezer album ID 560129162, UPC 742526362292) carries the label field “Five Star Music & NWS Music Group” for the same 15 March 2024 release date, without the additional clause crediting OneRepublic’s appearance to Mosley Music and Interscope Records that Apple’s longer copyright line includes. Two independent catalogues agree on the substitution itself.

NWS Music Group is a real company, not a shell this desk could find no trace of. It is the trading name for two linked London entities: North West Sound Recordings Limited, incorporated in the United Kingdom on 18 March 2022, and North West Songs Limited, incorporated 25 March 2022, with directors Nicky Howard Raphael and Christian Alexander Tattersfield. This desk’s own directory profile of NWS Music Group, verified independently of this record, already identified Raphael as a former president of Capitol Records UK and Tattersfield as a former chief executive of Warner Music UK, and had separately noted that NWS’s own social media had promoted an association with KCee without this desk finding a formal signing announcement to confirm it. The Ojapiano Remix credit is the first primary-source document this desk has found that puts NWS Music Group’s name directly on a KCee release.

What the credit line does not say is what NWS Music Group’s role actually was. The wording, “Five Star Music & NWS Music Group,” is additive rather than substitutive in form, unlike every ONErpm credit on either side of it, which uses “exclusive license to” or “distributed by” language that names a single distributor. It is possible NWS Music Group acted as a co-publisher or clearance intermediary for OneRepublic’s guest appearance, given OneRepublic’s own credit ties to Mosley Music and Interscope, both Universal Music Group affiliates with far more routine dealings with a UK major-adjacent independent than with a Nigerian distributor’s Lagos office. It is also possible NWS Music Group briefly took over distribution for this one release for reasons specific to clearing an international feature. Both are plausible readings of the same four words, and this desk did not find a document that resolves between them.

Why the gap on either side matters as much as the swap itself

The two releases immediately following the reversion to ONErpm, “Champion” (21 November 2024) and “Desha” (13 December 2024), carry no distributor name at all, just “Five Star Music” on its own, the first time that has happened on a KCee release since before the ONErpm relationship began in January 2021. Three months later, “Abeg” (21 March 2025) restored a distributor credit, but in a new, shorter format, “Five Star Music / ONErpm,” that has held for every release checked since, through “Celebration” on 18 September 2026. Whether the two undistributed releases reflect a renegotiation, a lapsed agreement that was quickly restored, or simply an administrative gap in how the credit line was generated, no source obtained by this desk says.

What this means for artists

A credit line is the cheapest due diligence tool available to any artist, manager or reporter trying to understand who actually controls a record’s distribution, and it is also one of the least informative once something unusual happens on it. KCee’s own catalogue shows a five-year, otherwise unbroken relationship with one distributor, a single unexplained substitution of a different, UK-based company’s name for exactly one release involving an international guest, a brief reversion to no named distributor at all, and then a changed but stable wording that has held since. Every one of those four states is visible in public metadata. None of them states a reason. For an artist negotiating a distribution agreement, the lesson Zanku Records’ relationship with ONErpm already taught this desk applies again here: a consistent credit line is good evidence that an operating relationship exists, and a sudden change in it is good evidence that something happened, but neither tells you what the agreement says, who signed it, or why it changed. An artist’s own catalogue page is a useful place to start asking questions. It is not a substitute for reading the contract, and an artist whose label brings in an outside company for a single high-profile feature, as this record documents happening here, is entitled to ask that company directly what role it played and on what terms, rather than inferring it from four words on a streaming credit.

What is not established

THIS IS NOT A RECORD OF A DISCLOSED TRANSACTION. No contract, fee, royalty split or clearance agreement between Five Star Music, NWS Music Group, ONErpm, OneRepublic, Mosley Music or Interscope Records appears in any source obtained by this desk. What is established is the phonogram credit line on one commercial release, corroborated across two independent catalogues.

NWS MUSIC GROUP’S ROLE ON THIS SPECIFIC RELEASE IS NOT ESTABLISHED. The credit names the company alongside Five Star Music without stating whether it acted as a co-distributor, a clearance intermediary for OneRepublic’s appearance, a publishing administrator, or something else. This record does not resolve that question and does not speculate on which is correct.

THE CAUSE OF THE TWO RELEASES NAMING NO DISTRIBUTOR IN LATE 2024 IS NOT ESTABLISHED. “Champion” and “Desha,” released in November and December 2024, carry a Five Star Music credit with no distributor name at all, between an ONErpm-credited release before them and a renamed “Five Star Music / ONErpm” credit beginning three months after. No source obtained by this desk explains the gap.

NO NIGERIAN OR UK REGULATORY FILING LINKS THE COMPANIES TO THIS RELEASE. Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission has no public search interface. UK Companies House confirms NWS Music Group’s constituent entities exist and names their directors, but no filing obtained by this desk connects either company to this specific release, its revenue, or any agreement behind it.

THIS DESK’S OWN EARLIER NOTE ON NWS MUSIC GROUP IS NOW PARTIALLY RESOLVED, NOT FULLY. A verification note on NWS Music Group’s company profile had flagged a promotional association with KCee that this desk could not independently confirm as a formal signing. This record supplies the first primary-source document placing NWS Music Group’s name on a KCee release, but it documents one single, not an ongoing signing, and should not be read as confirming anything broader than that one credit line.