Deal sheet
- Status
- Unannounced and, across registries, inconsistent. Three facts are established by documents this desk fetched and read on 11 November 2026. First, Apple Music's entry for Davido's 2012 debut album Omo Baba Olowo: The Genesis carried the phonogram credit "(P) 2012 HKN Music, distributed by The Plug Entertainment" in every Internet Archive capture available from 2 November 2020 to 15 August 2024 (six captures checked, across the Nigerian, United Kingdom and United States storefronts). Second, that entry (Apple collection ID 1536040050) now returns HTTP 404 and is absent from the iTunes Lookup API, and the album is live under a different entry (1797603151) whose credit reads "(P) 2012 Davido Music Worldwide Limited, Under Exclusive License to Virgin Music Nigeria". The stated owner changed from HKN Music to Davido Music Worldwide Limited and a licensee belonging to Universal Music Group appeared, with no announcement from any party. Third, the same credit appears on ten further recordings dated 2013 to January 2019, all of them Davido Music Worldwide releases, and on nothing else in either the Davido or the DMW catalogue. Against that, Deezer's label field for the same products names only "Davido Music Worldwide (DMW)" and no licensee, and MusicBrainz holds the album under the label "The Plug Entertainment" at the same barcode (840167519287) that Deezer reports for the current Apple-era product. Separately, Davido told The Long Form podcast, in remarks reported on 1 June 2026, that he plans to buy his masters back "from Sony"; the eleven recordings in this record are the part of his catalogue whose credit line names Universal's Virgin, not Sony. No wrongdoing is alleged against any party. This record treats the divergence between the registries, and the absence of any announcement, as the finding.
- Type
- Licensing
- Parties
- Davido Music Worldwide, Virgin Music Group
- Amount
- N/A Not disclosed. No announcement, release, filing or interview naming a fee, advance, royalty rate or term was found by this desk for this arrangement. Neither party has published anything about it at all.
- Rights covered
- Sound-recording (phonogram) rights only, as stated in the phonogram credit field on Apple Music release pages: "Davido Music Worldwide Limited, Under Exclusive License to Virgin Music Nigeria". The wording states ownership in Davido Music Worldwide Limited and a licence, not an assignment, to Virgin Music Nigeria. Publishing, songwriting and neighbouring rights are not addressed by the credit and no source for any of them was found. Affected recordings (eleven): Omo Baba Olowo: The Genesis (album, 17 July 2012), Gobe (25 February 2013), Aye (1 February 2014), Tchelete (Good Life) (13 April 2014), Fans Mi (9 June 2015), The Money (7 November 2015), Prayer (17 January 2017), Aje (17 April 2018), Mind (31 August 2018), Twisted (19 October 2018), Bum Bum (18 January 2019).
- Territory
- Not stated on the credit line. The credit is identical in the United States and Nigerian Apple Music storefronts, both checked 11 November 2026. Virgin Music Nigeria is the Lagos operation of Virgin Music Group, which Music in Africa describes as "a division of Universal Music Group's global network", launched in Nigeria in a report dated 4 September 2023 and headed by Olukorede "Kay" Ikazoboh.
- Announced
- No announcement was found from Davido, Davido Music Worldwide, Virgin Music Group, Virgin Music Nigeria or Universal Music Group. The arrangement is dated here from product metadata only. Deezer records a release date of 21 February 2025 for nine of the eleven affected recordings. Apple Music collection identifiers for all eleven sit inside one narrow band (1797345530 to 1797663986). The earliest Internet Archive capture of the new Apple Music album entry, 6 April 2025, already carries the Virgin Music Nigeria credit. The last capture of the superseded Apple entry, 15 August 2024, still carries the previous credit.
- Primary document
- Rights registry
- Sources
- Apple Music / iTunes Lookup API, Davido artist ID 254654363, 200 catalogue entries fetched and read 11 November 2026: nine entries carry the phonogram credit "Davido Music Worldwide Limited, Under Exclusive License to Virgin Music Nigeria". · Apple Music / iTunes Lookup API, DMW label-as-artist ID 279356665: five of six entries carry the Virgin Music Nigeria credit, including Prayer (2017) and Bum Bum (2019), which do not appear on the Davido artist lookup. · Internet Archive, 15 August 2024, superseded Apple Music entry for the debut album: "(P) 2012 HKN Music, distributed by The Plug Entertainment". · Internet Archive, 2 November 2020, Nigerian storefront, same superseded entry, same HKN Music credit. Earliest capture found. · Internet Archive, 6 April 2025, earliest capture of the replacement entry, already reading "(P) 2012 Davido Music Worldwide Limited, Under Exclusive License to Virgin Music Nigeria". · Deezer API, debut album: label field "Davido Music Worldwide (DMW)", no licensee named, UPC 840167519287. · Deezer API, "Mind": release date 21 February 2025, label "Davido Music Worldwide (DMW)", UPC 840167518273. · MusicBrainz, one release, label "The Plug Entertainment", barcode 840167519287. · Music in Africa directory, HKN Music: founded by Davido and his brother Adewale Adeleke (Deekay), in operation since 2011. · Music in Africa, 4 September 2023: Virgin Music Group, "a division of Universal Music Group's global network", launches in Nigeria under Olukorede "Kay" Ikazoboh. · Davido Music Worldwide official site, fetched 11 November 2026: "DMW was founded by Davido in 2016", current roster listed, no mention of Virgin, Universal, Sony, Nine+ or UnitedMasters. · Legit.ng, 1 June 2026: Davido tells The Long Form podcast he plans to buy his catalogue back from Sony Music.
Read this before citing: METHOD. Phonogram credit lines were read from the iTunes Lookup API (not from rendered web pages) for Davido artist ID 254654363 and for the DMW label-as-artist ID 279356665, 200 and 6 catalogue entries respectively, fetched 11 November 2026 from the United States storefront, with the album and three singles re-checked against the Nigerian storefront. Historic credit lines were read out of Internet Archive captures of the superseded Apple Music entry, collection ID 1536040050, at timestamps 20201102153649 (ng), 20201228015954 (gb), 20211226171032 (us), 20221013232533 (us), 20230406072224 (us), 20231013130751 (us) and 20240815175854 (us). Deezer label fields, release dates and UPCs came from api.deezer.com album endpoints. The MusicBrainz entry came from the ws/2 release search endpoint.
ELEVEN TITLES, NOT A WHOLE CATALOGUE. The Virgin Music Nigeria credit appears on eleven recordings and on nothing else. It appears on no release in the solo catalogues of former DMW artists Peruzzi (165 entries), Mayorkun (131), Dremo (165), Idowest (169), Lil Frosh (74) or B-Red (52), all checked the same day. This is a credit on a specific set of first-era Davido Music Worldwide masters, not a roster deal, and this record does not claim otherwise.
THE DELIVERY DATE IS PARTLY INFERRED. Nine of the eleven carry an explicit Deezer release date of 21 February 2025 (Gobe, Aye, Tchelete, Fans Mi, The Money, Prayer, Mind, Twisted, Bum Bum), which is a hard figure returned by Deezer's own API. The album keeps its original 17 July 2012 date on Deezer but its Deezer album ID, 716218421, sits inside the same band as those nine (715607921 to 716382391). "Aje" has no Deezer entry in that band at all: Deezer carries only the original 17 April 2018 product (album 140667692, label "Davido Music Worldwide", UPC 8433391971215), so for that one title Deezer and Apple are serving different products. The Apple collection-ID band (1797345530 to 1797663986) is consistent with a single delivery batch, bounded by Apple IDs for releases dated 1 January 2025 (1788121126) and 17 April 2025 (1825427308). Band position is an inference from identifier ordering, not a document, and is labelled as such.
THE BARCODES POINT AT A THIRD COMPANY. All eleven products carry UPCs beginning 840167. Three other Davido-related releases whose Deezer label field reads "The Plug Entertainment" carry UPCs in the same block (Dodo 840167518242, Won Le Ba 840167500490, Bimpe 840167516484). On that evidence the 840167 prefix is used by The Plug Entertainment, which is also the distributor named in the superseded credit line. GS1's own prefix registry could not be reached from this desk (gs1.org returned HTTP 403, gepir.gs1.org a redirect with no body), so prefix attribution here rests on observed co-occurrence across four releases, not on a registry lookup, and is stated as an inference. The Plug Entertainment is not listed as a party to this record, because nothing establishes it is a party to the licence; its name appears on the previous credit and its prefix appears on the new barcodes, and that is all that is established. Note also that at least one Plug-labelled release carries a different prefix entirely (Dollar, 195069271628), so the company is not confined to one block.
THREE REGISTRIES DISAGREE. Apple Music: owner Davido Music Worldwide Limited, exclusive licensee Virgin Music Nigeria. Deezer: label "Davido Music Worldwide (DMW)", no licensee named. MusicBrainz: label "The Plug Entertainment", release e0044139-5942-40d0-909f-58d2ade4d3aa, barcode 840167519287, which is the barcode Deezer returns for the current product. All three were read on 11 November 2026. No source explains the divergence. MusicBrainz is a volunteer-edited registry and its label field may predate or postdate the others; its edit history was not examined.
HKN MUSIC IS NOT ESTABLISHED AS A COMPANY. No corporate register available to this desk identifies an HKN Music entity. Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission has no public API and no manual lookup was performed. The name is recorded here only as it appears in the superseded Apple Music credit. For background, the Music in Africa directory entry for HKN Music, fetched 11 November 2026, says it "was founded by Nigerian superstar Davido and his brother Adewale Adeleke (Deekay)" and gives "In operation since: 2011". That is a directory profile added by a contributor, not a filing. No document was found recording any transfer of rights from HKN Music to Davido Music Worldwide Limited, and this record does not assert that one happened: it records that the stated claimant on the credit line changed.
A DATE PROBLEM THAT IS NOT NECESSARILY A CONTRADICTION. The credit names Davido Music Worldwide Limited as claimant on a recording first published in 2012, while DMW's own website, fetched 11 November 2026, says "DMW was founded by Davido in 2016". A phonogram year states the year of first publication, not the year the current claimant acquired the right, so the two statements can both be true. No document explains how or when the claim reached DMW.
THREE OWNER NAMES IN ONE CATALOGUE. Across Davido's Apple catalogue the stated owner appears as "Davido Music Worldwide Limited", "Davido Worldwide Entertainment LLC" (2018 to 2019 releases) and "Davido Worldwide Entertainment Limited" (2020 releases). This record makes no claim about the corporate relationship between those three names; none was established.
NINE+ AND UNITEDMASTERS APPEAR NOWHERE. Davido said in April 2024 that DMW artists would move to Nine+ Records, launched with UnitedMasters. Neither name appears on any of the 200 Apple catalogue entries checked, or on the DMW label entries. DMW's own website, fetched 11 November 2026, still presents DMW as an operating label with a current roster, which sits awkwardly against April 2024 reports that the label had been dissolved. That is noted, not resolved.
NO RESPONSE SOUGHT OR RECEIVED. This record was built entirely from public product metadata, public archive captures and public directory and press material. Neither Davido Music Worldwide nor Virgin Music Group was contacted before publication. Corrections and documents are welcome and will be published.
