Deal sheet
- Status
- NO DEAL ANNOUNCED; OBSERVED CHANGE IN STOREFRONT CREDIT ONLY. Angélique Kidjo's two most recent studio albums before HOPE!! both carried a Universal Music Group credit; HOPE!!, announced 6 March 2026 and released 24 April 2026, carries a Warner Music Group credit instead. No press release, filing, company statement or interview located for this record describes a signing, a licence, an option exercise, a contract expiry or any negotiation between Kidjo and either group. This record documents a verified change in which corporate credit appears on the recordings, not a confirmed transaction, and it should be read accordingly.
- Type
- Licensing
- Parties
- Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group
- Amount
- Not disclosed. Neither Warner Music, Warner Music France, Parlophone, Universal Music Group, Decca Records, Red Light Management, Shore Fire Media nor Angélique Kidjo has published a signing announcement, an advance, a royalty rate, a licence term or any consideration figure covering HOPE!!. No document obtained for this record describes a transaction; only storefront phonographic credits and generic marketing references to a releasing label were found.
- Rights covered
- Recording (phonographic) rights only, as credited in storefront and distributor metadata. No contract has been seen and publishing is not covered.
Celia (19 April 2019) and Mother Nature (18 June 2021), Kidjo's two studio albums immediately before HOPE!!, both carry the phonographic credit "Decca Records France" on their US Apple Music release pages, rendered verbatim as "℗ 2019 Decca Records France" and "℗ 2021 Decca Records France". Universal Music Canada's own announcement of Mother Nature, published on universalmusic.ca, states that Kidjo "has released her new album Mother Nature (Universal Music Group)". Decca Records is named among Universal Music Group's "renowned label brands" in UMG's 2025 Annual Report (page 27), a document authorised for issue 26 March 2026 and audited by EY Accountants B.V. MusicBrainz separately records a US release of Celia carrying a Verve Records credit (catalogue B0030016-2); Verve is named in the same UMG Annual Report passage as one of UMG's "leading classical and jazz labels". Decca and Verve are both UMG label brands, but which UMG subsidiary holds the underlying contract with Kidjo, and on what terms, could not be established.
HOPE!! (24 April 2026) carries the phonographic credit "℗ 2026 Warner Music France" on its Apple Music release page, while Deezer's catalogue field for the same release, and for a 17-track edition released 30 July 2026, reads "Parlophone (France)". Warner Music France SAS and Parlophone Records Limited both appear as direct subsidiaries of Warner Music Group Corp. in the company's FY2025 Form 10-K, Exhibit 21.1, filed with the SEC. No entity named "Parlophone France" appears anywhere in that exhibit as a separate legal person, and no entity named "Decca" or "Verve" appears in it either. The most defensible reading is that "Parlophone (France)" functions as a brand under which Warner Music France SAS releases music, the same structure this desk has already documented for the Elektra France imprint on Fally Ipupa's catalogue; it is not evidence of a distinct French Parlophone subsidiary.
No source names a licence, an assignment, a work-for-hire arrangement, an advance, a royalty split or a reversion date for either the Universal-era or the Warner-era recordings. The only established fact is which corporate ℗ credit appears on which release, and when.
- Territory
- Not stated by any party. MusicBrainz records Celia's release markets as the United States (Verve), Australia and Algeria (Decca Records), with no catalogue number recorded for the non-US pressings. Mother Nature carries a worldwide (XW) release alongside a dated US release (Decca Records, catalogue B003917-02). HOPE!! is documented here through a US Apple Music storefront page and two Deezer catalogue entries; no release-by-territory breakdown was located for it.
Kidjo is a Beninese-American citizen based between the United States and France. The French-registered ℗ credit on both the Universal-era albums (Decca Records France) and the Warner-era album (Warner Music France) suggests the recordings are registered through each group's French operating company regardless of where they are streamed or sold, but no party has disclosed a territory carve-out, an exclusivity boundary or a distribution map, and none should be inferred from this record.
- Announced
- 2026-03-06
- Primary document
- Regulatory filing
- Sources
- Warner Music Group Corp. FY2025 Form 10-K, Exhibit 21.1, list of subsidiaries, filed with the SEC 20 November 2025, accession number 0001319161-25-000034. Lists "Parlophone Records Limited" (United Kingdom) and "Warner Music France SAS" (France) as direct Warner Music Group subsidiaries. No entity named "Decca" or "Verve" appears anywhere in the exhibit, which rules out a Warner-side explanation for those credits. Retrieved 12 October 2026. · Universal Music Group N.V. 2025 Annual Report, authorised for issue 26 March 2026, audited by EY Accountants B.V. Page 27 names Decca Records and Verve Records among UMG's "renowned label brands". Filed for Euronext Amsterdam listing 'UMG.AS'; UMG is registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce under number 81106661. · Apple Music release page for HOPE!!, 24 April 2026, 16 tracks. Rendered phonographic credit: "℗ 2026 Warner Music France". · Apple Music release page for Mother Nature, 18 June 2021, standard edition. Rendered phonographic credit: "℗ 2021 Decca Records France". · Apple Music release page for Celia, 19 April 2019. Rendered phonographic credit: "℗ 2019 Decca Records France". · Deezer catalogue record for HOPE!!, 16 tracks, release date 2026-04-24, UPC 5026854794860. Label field: "Parlophone (France)". · Deezer catalogue record for a 17-track HOPE!! edition, release date 2026-07-30, UPC 1200214531393. Label field: "Parlophone (France)". · MusicBrainz release page for HOPE!!, US release, labelled Parlophone France and Warner Music. · MusicBrainz release page for Mother Nature, US release, catalogue B003917-02, labelled Decca Records. · MusicBrainz release page for Celia, US release, catalogue B0030016-2, labelled Verve. · Universal Music Canada announcement, 21 June 2021, stating Kidjo "has released her new album Mother Nature (Universal Music Group)". · Shore Fire Media announcement of HOPE!!, 6 March 2026, naming "Parlophone / Warner Music" as the release's label and announcing an April 24 release date. · Red Light Management (Kidjo's management company) announcement, 31 March 2026, naming "Parlophone / Warner Music" as the release's label.
Read this before citing: This record rests on phonographic copyright lines published on storefront and distributor pages, a MusicBrainz catalogue, two record groups' own regulatory filings, and marketing statements. It is not built on a contract, and no contract between Kidjo and either group, in either era, has been seen.
What a ℗ line establishes is who the releasing party asserts owns the sound recording at the point of upload. It does not disclose the term, the territory, the royalty rate, the advance, an option structure or whether a reversion date exists. None of those were disclosed by any party in either era, and none should be inferred from this record.
The weakest link here, and it is flagged as such, is the identity of "Parlophone France". Apple Music's actual phonographic credit for HOPE!! names Warner Music France, a confirmed Warner Music Group subsidiary per Exhibit 21.1. Deezer's label field instead reads "Parlophone (France)", and Parlophone Records Limited is also a confirmed Warner subsidiary, but only as a United Kingdom entity; no French Parlophone legal entity appears in Warner's own subsidiary list. The likeliest reading, consistent with how Warner's Elektra France imprint operates inside Warner Music France SAS on Fally Ipupa's catalogue (documented separately on this site), is that Parlophone functions as a brand under which Warner Music France SAS releases music in France, not as its own French legal person. This record treats it as a brand, not a company, and that choice could be wrong if a French Parlophone entity exists outside the documents obtained here.
On the Universal side, MusicBrainz records a US pressing of Celia under a Verve credit rather than Decca. Both Decca and Verve are named as UMG label brands in UMG's own 2025 Annual Report, so this does not create a Warner-versus-Universal ambiguity, only an internal UMG one: which UMG operating company actually held Kidjo's recording contract, Decca's or Verve's parent, could not be established from storefront metadata, and the two brands may simply reflect different territorial pressings of the same underlying UMG agreement.
No announcement of a Kidjo-to-Warner signing, licence or catalogue move was located anywhere, including in Warner's own newsroom, Universal's own newsroom, trade press, or Kidjo's own publicists. Shore Fire Media's 6 March 2026 release and Red Light Management's 31 March 2026 release both name "Parlophone / Warner Music" as HOPE!!'s label in the course of announcing the album itself; neither frames it as a signing, a departure from Universal, or any kind of deal. It is entirely possible that Kidjo's arrangement with each group was always album-by-album or release-by-release rather than an exclusive multi-album contract, in which case there would be no "deal" of the kind this desk normally documents, only a sequence of separate choices. That possibility could not be ruled out and is not ruled out here.
Dating. The Announced field carries 2026-03-06, the date of Shore Fire Media's first public reference to HOPE!! as a Parlophone/Warner Music release. The underlying Warner relationship could be older or could date to exactly this announcement; no document obtained distinguishes between the two.
Neither Angélique Kidjo, Warner Music Group, Warner Music France, Parlophone, Universal Music Group nor Decca Records has commented on any change in label relationship, and no request for comment forms part of this record.
This record will be updated if any party, a reachable company filing, or a future catalogue credit discloses a signing, a licence, a term, an advance or any rights allocation for HOPE!! or its successor.
