A Kenyan court has confirmed, from Sol Generation Records’ own sworn statements, that the Sauti Sol-founded label told a judge two different and incompatible things about who owns Crystal Asige’s music, on the same pair of affidavits, about songs released months apart. On one track, the label said Asige herself owns the master rights outright. On another, it said it owns the masters and she is merely a credited contributor. On a third, it said it owns nothing at all, because the rights belong to Universal Music. The High Court at Nairobi’s Milimani Commercial Courts read that pattern as evidence supporting her infringement claim, not against it, and ordered the label to open its books.
Asige, a Kenyan songwriter, performer and now a nominated Senator, sued Sol Generation Records, the four members of Sauti Sol and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in 2022 over five songs: “Lenga,” “Extravaganza,” “Ukiwa Mbali,” “Favorite Song” and “Intro.” She never had a written recording contract with the label. The dispute centres on what happened to her contributions to those songs after she left in November 2019, and on who, if anyone, has been accounting to her for what they earned.
Three songs, three different answers#
The clearest window into the dispute is the label’s own courtroom account of each song, which a High Court ruling delivered on 26 May 2023 lays out side by side.
For “Lenga,” Sol Generation Records told the court that Asige “exclusively owns and enjoys the master rights” and has full control over its commercial exploitation. That claim sits awkwardly next to an undisputed fact in the same case: in September 2019, the label signed a contract with KLM granting the airline exclusive, worldwide, perpetual rights to use and promote “Lenga” in advertising, a deal KLM’s own affidavit says paid Sol Generation Records more than Kshs. 4 million. If Asige owned the masters outright, it is not clear on what authority the label licensed them away. The court did not resolve that question at this stage, but it treated the contradiction as part of why Asige’s claim deserved to proceed.
For “Ukiwa Mbali,” the label took the opposite position: it owns the full master rights, and Asige was only a contributing artist, credited but not an owner. That song was part of the same 2019 KLM deal.
For “Intro,” featured on Sauti Sol’s 2020 album “Midnight Train,” the label’s position flipped again, this time in the other direction. It told the court it owns no rights to the song at all, that the album is “wholly owned by Universal Music,” and that Asige’s real dispute is with Universal, not with Sol Generation. The court found that this admission cut against the label: if it had no rights to license, then licensing or placing the song on a platform without Asige’s consent was itself evidence that someone had treated her contribution as fair game regardless of who technically owned it.
On “Extravaganza,” reportedly synced to the Netflix series “Country Queen,” the label says Asige was a featured artist entitled to a slice of publishing and performer royalties, not a co-owner. On the Bensoul track “Favorite Song,” it disputes that she arranged anything at all, saying her role was limited to background vocals.
What the ruling actually decided#
It is worth being precise about what this ruling is and is not. It is a decision on an interlocutory application, the kind of order a court makes to preserve a situation while a case is still being heard, not a final judgment on who owns what. The judge found that Asige had shown a strong enough case, on the papers filed, to justify two things: a temporary injunction stopping the label and the four Sauti Sol members from further use of her disputed contributions, and an order requiring them to hand over, within thirty days, a complete statement of royalties and revenues plus every licensing, assignment and royalty record touching the five songs since 2019.
KLM was not included in the injunction. The airline told the court it had already removed the two affected songs from its promotional material, and with no continuing use to restrain, the judge limited the order against it. But the figure KLM’s own affidavit put on the table, more than Kshs. 4 million paid for use of two songs, is now part of the court record, confirmed by the party that paid it rather than by press reporting or industry estimate.
The underlying suit is still open. Separately reported Kenyan coverage from late 2025 describes continuing testimony in the case, with the label’s own counsel reportedly defending its handling of royalties and the hearing expected to run into 2026. This record relies only on the ruling actually obtained; it does not assume any outcome of hearings that followed it.
The Universal Music question nobody has answered#
One loose thread matters more than the ruling itself resolves. The label says “Midnight Train” is “wholly owned by Universal Music,” full stop, with no further corporate detail in the court record. Separate reporting on the album has at different points referred to the Universal entity involved as a Pan-African division rather than any single national subsidiary. Those are not necessarily the same company, and nothing obtained for this story pins down which Universal Music entity actually holds the rights, what kind of deal it struck with Sauti Sol for that album, or whether Universal was ever made aware that one of the credited writers on “Intro” disputes how she was treated. If Sol Generation’s own defence is that this question belongs to Universal, then Universal’s silence on it is itself notable.
What this means for artists#
The practical lesson here has little to do with Asige’s specific songs and everything to do with a gap that catches working musicians across the continent: the space between being a founding or featured member of a collective and having anything in writing that says what you actually own.
Asige’s case shows how that gap plays out in real time. Without a signed recording contract, there was no document fixing, song by song, what percentage of a master she held, what she was owed when the label licensed a track to a third party, or who was authorised to negotiate on her behalf. That absence let the label argue three different ownership positions across three songs in one set of court papers, not necessarily out of bad faith, but because nothing in writing forced a single, consistent account.
For any artist working inside a label, crew or collective without a signed agreement, the questions this case puts on the table are concrete and worth asking before a dispute, not after one. Who holds the master rights to each specific recording you are on, and does that match what you were told? If your work gets placed with an airline, a streaming series or an advertiser, who signed that deal, and were you told before or after? And if a label says a third party, a distributor, a major, a platform, owns the rights instead, is there any paper trail showing that third party even knows you exist as a contributor?
None of those questions require a lawsuit to ask. They require a split sheet, at minimum, signed at the time a song is finished, naming every contributor’s share before the money starts moving. Asige’s case suggests that in its absence, a court can still intervene, but only years later, only after litigation, and only as far as an interim order compelling disclosure, not as a substitute for the agreement that should have existed from the start.
Full deal record, including sources checked and what could not be verified: Kenya’s High Court Orders Sol Generation Records to Open Its Books to Crystal Asige Over Five Disputed Songs.
