Deal sheet
- Status
- ANNOUNCED 2 OCTOBER 2023 AS A TALENT-MANAGEMENT AND LABEL PARTNERSHIP. NO TERMS DISCLOSED. CATALOGUE EVIDENCE SHOWS A NARROWER AND SHORTER RELATIONSHIP THAN THE ANNOUNCEMENT IMPLIED. Trade coverage described all three named artists, Ahmed Santa, Slyver and Abo El Anwar, as flagship signings launching with the partnership. Apple Music's own phonogram credits, checked independently by this desk, show that Ahmed Santa's Universal Music MENA relationship is documented from August 2022, fourteen months before the announcement, and corroborated by an independent SceneNoise feature from the same month describing it as a 'recent signing'. Slyver's first Universal Music MENA credit is dated two months before the announcement. Only Abo El Anwar's documented Universal Music MENA credits begin after the announcement, consistent with its framing for him alone. For all three artists, the last Universal Music MENA phonogram credit found falls between May and August 2024, roughly seven to ten months after the announcement, and none of the three carries a Universal Music MENA credit on any release since. No party involved, Universal Music MENA, Harb Management, Patrick Boulos, Sherif Harb, or any of the three artists, has made any public statement about the relationship ending, lapsing, or changing.
- Type
- Joint Venture
- Parties
- Universal Music Middle East & North Africa, Harb Management
- Amount
- Not disclosed Not disclosed. No source checked names a fee, royalty split, equity stake, or any other financial term for the Universal Music MENA / Harb Management arrangement.
- Rights covered
- A talent-management and label partnership, not a catalogue acquisition or publishing deal. Universal Music MENA and Harb Management announced on 2 October 2023 that they would jointly find, develop, sign, produce, market and promote local Egyptian talent, naming three Egyptian hip-hop artists, Ahmed Santa, Slyver (also credited Slyver PV) and Abo El Anwar (also styled Abu El Anwar), as the partnership's flagship signings. This record does not assert that UMG MENA or Harb Management acquired any copyright; it documents what trade sources announced about the artist relationships, and what Apple Music's own phonogram (u2117) catalogue credits independently show about when those relationships actually appear and disappear.
WHAT THE ANNOUNCEMENT SAID: that the three artists' signings were new, launching alongside the partnership itself in October 2023.
WHAT APPLE MUSIC'S OWN CATALOGUE CREDITS SHOW, fetched directly via the iTunes lookup API on 1 November 2026 and checked artist by artist:
AHMED SANTA: his album 'Santa El Gded' carries a 'u2117 2022 Universal Music MENA' credit dated 6 August 2022, fourteen months before the October 2023 announcement. This is independently corroborated by a SceneNoise feature dated 7 August 2022 that describes the same album and refers to his 'recent signing to Universal Music MENA', a description that predates the announcement by over a year. Santa carries seven further Universal Music MENA phonogram credits between February and August 2024, with the last dated 14 August 2024 ('Estana Hako7'). No Universal Music MENA credit appears on any Ahmed Santa release before or after that span; his catalogue before 6 August 2022 and after 14 August 2024 is credited to himself, to 'WKS LTD', to 'Global', or to other named parties.
SLYVER (SLYVER PV): his single 'Yaba' carries a 'u2117 2023 Universal Music MENA' credit dated 8 August 2023, almost two months before the announcement. Two further Universal Music MENA credits follow, both dated after the announcement: '3 Amigos' (19 February 2024, the one release that names all three flagship artists together) and 'Kaza Haga' (1 May 2024), which is the last Universal Music MENA credit in his catalogue. Releases both before 8 August 2023 and after 1 May 2024, including a run of 2026 singles, carry a 'WKS LTD' phonogram credit instead, a name this desk could not independently identify or verify as a distinct legal entity.
ABO EL ANWAR (ABU EL ANWAR): his is the one of the three artists whose catalogue timeline is consistent with the announcement. His first Universal Music MENA credit, on '7abba Fo2 // 7abba Ta7t', is dated 25 January 2024, roughly three and a half months after the 2 October 2023 announcement. Three further Universal Music MENA credits follow: '3 Amigos' (19 February 2024), 'Tokyo' (27 April 2024) and 'Ayamy Betfoot' (15 July 2024), the last Universal Music MENA credit in his catalogue. No Universal Music MENA credit appears anywhere else across a discography that otherwise runs from 2011 to 2026 under his own name or under labels including 'Global'.
THE COMMON PATTERN: for all three artists, every Universal Music MENA phonogram credit this desk found falls within a roughly two-year window between 6 August 2022 and 15 July 2024, and the last credited release for any of the three artists is dated 14 August 2024. No Universal Music MENA credit appears in any of the three artists' catalogues after that date, through their most recent releases as of November 2026. No source checked, trade or primary, records an end, a non-renewal, a downgrade, or any change to the Universal Music MENA / Harb Management partnership or to any of the three named artist relationships. The partnership was announced once, in October 2023, and has not been publicly revisited since by either company.
- Territory
- Egypt, administered from Universal Music MENA's Dubai, UAE base. The announcement followed, and was explicitly framed by trade coverage as building on, Universal Music Group's August 2023 acquisition of UAE-based Chabaka Music, already covered in this directory (see deal 5166, not re-litigated here).
- Announced
- 2 October 2023, per same-day and near-same-day trade reports naming Universal Music MENA CEO Patrick Boulos and Harb Management founder Sherif Harb directly.
- Primary document
- Trade press
- Sources
- Music Business Worldwide, 'Universal Music Middle East & North Africa strikes partnership in Egypt with Harb Management Talent Agency,' published 2 October 2023. Live HTTP 200 confirmed 1 November 2026. Source of the announcement date, the quotes from Universal Music MENA CEO Patrick Boulos and Harb Management founder Sherif Harb, and the naming of the three flagship artists. · Music In Africa, October 2023 coverage of the same announcement. Live HTTP 200 confirmed 1 November 2026. Independent trade corroboration naming the same three artists and companies. · SceneNoise, 7 August 2022, feature on Ahmed Santa's album 'Santa El Gedeed' describing his 'recent signing to Universal Music MENA'. Live HTTP 200 confirmed 1 November 2026. Independent pre-announcement evidence that the Ahmed Santa / Universal Music MENA relationship predates the October 2023 partnership announcement by roughly fourteen months. · SceneNoise coverage of the joint single '3 Amigos' by Slyver, Abo El Anwar and Ahmed Santa, featured in its Rap of the Week coverage for 15-22 February 2024. Live HTTP 200 confirmed 1 November 2026. The one release in this record that names, and musically unites, all three flagship artists under the partnership. · Apple Music catalogue for Ahmed Santa, fetched directly via the iTunes lookup API, 1 November 2026. Source of the full phonogram-credit history used in this record for that artist. · Apple Music catalogue for Slyver PV, fetched directly 1 November 2026. Source of the full phonogram-credit history used in this record for that artist. · Apple Music catalogue for Abo El Anwar, fetched directly 1 November 2026. Source of the full phonogram-credit history used in this record for that artist.
Read this before citing: ESTABLISHED FROM PRIMARY SOURCES THIS DESK FETCHED AND READ IN FULL: Music Business Worldwide's 2 October 2023 report, a trade outlet quoting both companies' named executives directly; Music In Africa's independent October 2023 corroboration; SceneNoise's own 7 August 2022 feature on Ahmed Santa, read for the pre-announcement 'recent signing' description; SceneNoise's own February 2024 coverage of the joint single '3 Amigos'; and Apple Music's own catalogue metadata for all three named artists, fetched directly via the iTunes lookup API on 1 November 2026, for every phonogram-credit entry across each artist's full discography.
NOT ESTABLISHED, AND NOT GUESSED AT IN THIS RECORD: (1) any financial term of the Universal Music MENA / Harb Management partnership, including whether it involved a fee, a revenue share, or no direct payment between the two companies at all; (2) the exact legal name and structure of Harb Management, which trade sources style variously as 'Harb Talent Management' and 'Harb Management Talent Agency'; Egypt, like Nigeria, publishes no public company register this desk could query to resolve the discrepancy; (3) the legal identity of 'WKS LTD', a phonogram-credit holder that recurs across multiple different Egyptian hip-hop artists' catalogues both before, during the gap in, and after the Universal Music MENA window documented here; this desk could not determine whether it is a distributor, a sub-label, or an unrelated company, and does not assert any relationship between WKS LTD and either Universal Music MENA or Harb Management; (4) why every Universal Music MENA phonogram credit across all three named artists stops within the same two-to-three-month window in mid-to-late 2024, and whether that reflects a quiet end to the partnership, a renegotiation, a change in distribution arrangement, or something else; no source checked, including each artist's own public statements as far as this desk could find them, addresses this gap; and (5) whether the partnership between Universal Music MENA and Harb Management as companies, as distinct from the three named artist relationships, remains active. This record states the contradiction between the announcement's framing and the catalogue timeline plainly rather than resolving it, because no source checked resolves it.
