Atlantic’s Own Barcode Prefix Is on 12 FAVE Releases. Atlantic’s Name Is on None of Them.

October 10, 2026

Deal sheet

Status

Announced 12 November 2024, and reported ended by September 2026. On 12 November 2024 a signing announcement was issued stating that Bad Habit/Atlantic Records had signed the Nigerian singer FAVE (Chidozie Godsfavour Ugochinyere, born 13 March 2000), timed to her EP "Dutty Love". The announcement carried named-executive quotes: Bad Habit co-founders Kirk Harding and Matthew "Baus" Adesuyan ("FAVE is a force of nature whose talent is limitless"), and Lanre Gaba, President of Hip-Hop, R&B and Global at Atlantic Records ("FAVE is the kind of artist that excites us about the future of global music"). The same announcement describes Tumblar as FAVE's "management team", not as a label.

Trade press reporting published 17 September 2026 states that FAVE "previously signed to Atlantic Records before going independent, saying she wanted more investment in marketing her music rather than simply financial backing." Her current releases name her own imprint as rightsholder under exclusive licence to ONErpm.

WHAT THIS RECORD ESTABLISHES, WHICH IS NARROWER AND MORE SPECIFIC THAN THE ANNOUNCEMENT: reading FAVE's complete catalogue directly from Apple's iTunes Lookup API (artist ID 1493050702, 42 collection entries, US storefront) and from Deezer's album API (artist ID 12248736, 35 album entries, each album fetched individually), on 10 October 2026, the strings "Atlantic" and "Bad Habit" appear ZERO times in either dataset. Not on "Dutty Love", the EP the announcement was timed to, and not on any other release before or since.

What does appear is Atlantic's barcode. Twelve catalogue entries in the Deezer dataset carry a UPC beginning 075679, which is the GS1 company prefix used by Atlantic Recording Corporation. On all twelve of those entries, and only those, the rightsholder field is blank: it reads "P2024" or "P2025", a bare year with no company name. The correlation is exact in both directions: every blank-credit release carries the Atlantic prefix, and every Atlantic-prefix release has a blank credit, with no exceptions in either dataset.

Parties

Tumblar, Riddim Baby Ltd, Atlantic Recording Corporation, Bad Habit, emPawa Africa, ONErpm, The Plug Entertainment

Amount

Not disclosed Not disclosed. The 12 November 2024 signing announcement carries no financial figure, no advance, no royalty rate and no term. No document obtained for this record discloses consideration of any kind in either direction. Neither Atlantic Records, Bad Habit, Tumblar nor FAVE has published terms.

Rights covered

Sound-recording (master/phonogram) credit only. This record addresses what is printed on the public phonogram line and in the barcode of commercially released recordings. It does NOT establish, and no source obtained speaks to, who beneficially owns FAVE's masters, who owns or administers her compositions, her songwriter splits, any COSON or MCSN registration, or the terms of any recording agreement.

THE CREDIT CHRONOLOGY, read from Apple (artist 1493050702) and cross-checked against Deezer (artist 12248736) on 10 October 2026, for releases led by FAVE:

1. "1660386 Records DK", a DistroKid placeholder string, on M.O.M.M.S (12 July 2019) and Dal (19 January 2020). A "Records DK" credit indicates self-release through DistroKid and names no label.
2. "Chidozie Godsfavour Ugochinyere, Under exclusive license to The Plug Entertainment" on N.B.U (17 April 2020). The artist holds the right in her own legal name and licenses it out; the licensee does not own it. Deezer's label field for the same release names only the artist, not The Plug Entertainment: a registry disagreement, recorded not resolved.
3. "Tumblar" alone on Beautifully (12 May 2021).
4. "TUMBLAR under exclusive license to emPawa Africa Limited" on Baby Riddim (30 September 2021), the Riddim 5 EP (20 January 2022), Apple Music Home Session: Fave (25 February 2022) and Scatta Scatta (21 October 2022). Deezer carries the identical string on the same releases. This is a licence from the artist's imprint to emPawa, not an assignment: Tumblar is in the owner position.
5. Scattered third-party and self credits through 2023: AfroNext Ent LLC, Kronik Records, and her own name rendered "Chidozie God'sfavour" on two covers and Pop Sermon. Several of these are collaborations led by or shared with other artists.
6. A BARE YEAR WITH NO COMPANY NAME on twelve catalogue entries spanning 24 January 2024 to 17 July 2025: Belong to You (two entries, 24 and 25 January 2024), Controlla (23 May 2024), No Games (two entries, 25 and 26 September 2024), Dutty Love (two entries, 17 October and 5 November 2024), FAVE (Live) EP (29 April 2025), Intentions – A COLORS SHOW (two entries, 29 and 30 June 2025) and Intentions (two entries, 16 and 17 July 2025). Seven distinct releases across twelve catalogue entries. Apple renders these as "P 2024" or "P 2025"; Deezer renders the label field as "P2024" or "P2025". All twelve carry a UPC beginning 075679.
7. "Riddim Baby LTD" on Intentions (feat. Urban Chords) (23 November 2025), then "Riddim Baby Ltd with Exclusive License to ONErpm" on Dance (3 June 2026) and the RnBling EP (8 July 2026, featuring Chike and Yemi Alade). UPC prefixes 199384 and 739915, not 075679.

THE BARCODE EVIDENCE, AND HOW THE PREFIX WAS ATTRIBUTED. A UPC's leading digits are the GS1 company prefix issued to the party that registered the release. This desk attributed 075679 to Atlantic Recording Corporation empirically, by fetching unrelated releases and reading their UPC and label fields together on 10 October 2026: Bruno Mars, 24K Magic, 075679904126, label "Atlantic Records"; Charli xcx, BRAT, 075679666130, "Atlantic Records"; Cardi B, Invasion of Privacy, 075679873682, "Atlantic/KSR"; Lizzo, Special, 075679748898, "Nice Life/Atlantic"; Roddy Ricch, LIVE LIFE FAST, 075679762580, "Atlantic Records".

THE CONTROL CASE IS BURNA BOY, AND IT IS DECISIVE ON THE QUESTION OF WHETHER A BLANK CREDIT IS NORMAL. Burna Boy records through the same Bad Habit/Atlantic JV. Eight of his releases fetched for this record carry the same 075679 prefix AND name the parties explicitly in the label field: African Giant, 075679849304, "Spaceship/ Bad Habit/Atlantic Records"; Twice As Tall, 075679807311, same; Love, Damini, 075679745156, same; I Told Them…, 075679676344, same; No Sign of Weakness, 075679623539, same; Outside, 075679878540, "Bad Habit/On A Spaceship/Atlantic"; Gbona, 075679861559, same; On the Low, 075679858047, "Bad Habit /Atlantic". Bad Habit and Atlantic therefore do take named credit on the phonogram line when they take credit. On FAVE's twelve releases carrying the identical Atlantic prefix, that field is empty.

TIMING, WHICH DOES NOT MATCH THE ANNOUNCEMENT. The first FAVE release carrying Atlantic's 075679 prefix is Belong to You, 24 January 2024, which is roughly nine and a half months BEFORE the 12 November 2024 announcement. The last is Intentions, 17 July 2025. Her first release on her own Riddim Baby prefix follows on 23 November 2025, four months after the last Atlantic-prefix release and roughly fourteen months before the September 2026 independence reporting. The single "Intentions" appears on both sides of that line: released 16 and 17 July 2025 under the Atlantic prefix with a blank credit, then reissued 23 November 2025 as "Intentions (feat. Urban Chords)" under "Riddim Baby LTD".

Territory

Not specified in any source obtained. The 12 November 2024 announcement states no territory, no term and no rights scope. Atlantic Recording Corporation is a US company and a Warner Music Group label; Bad Habit is a US-based label joint venture with Atlantic, first struck in 2018 and extended in 2023. FAVE is Nigerian and based in Nigeria. emPawa Africa Music Services Limited, the licensee named on her 2021-2022 credits, is UK-registered (company 12412587). ONErpm, the current exclusive licensee, is US-headquartered. The recordings are distributed worldwide on Apple Music and Deezer, which establishes global availability but not the territorial scope of any grant between any of these parties.

Announced

2024-11-12

Primary document

Trade press

Sources

Read this before citing: WHAT IS NOT ESTABLISHED, STATED PLAINLY.

1. WHETHER ATLANTIC RECORDS OR BAD HABIT EVER HELD ANY RIGHT IN FAVE'S RECORDINGS. This record does not establish that they did, and does not establish that they did not. A blank phonogram line and an Atlantic barcode prefix together show that Atlantic registered and delivered the releases. They do not show what the contract said. A major-label agreement can fund marketing, A&R, radio and touring without requiring any change to the printed rightsholder credit, and an artist can retain her masters while a label distributes them. Nothing in this record should be read as a finding that Atlantic or Bad Habit took ownership of FAVE's masters, or as a finding that they did not.

2. WHY THE RIGHTSHOLDER FIELD IS BLANK ON ALL TWELVE ATLANTIC-PREFIX ENTRIES. No party has explained it and this desk did not establish a cause. It may be a metadata delivery omission at the distributor, a deliberate choice, or a consequence of an arrangement in which no single entity was nominated for the credit. The Burna Boy control case shows a blank credit is not technically required by the Bad Habit/Atlantic pipeline, which makes the omission notable, but notable is not the same as explained.

3. NO ALLEGATION OF NON-PAYMENT OR WRONGDOING IS MADE OR SUPPORTED. This desk has no evidence about what Atlantic or Bad Habit paid, advanced, recouped or administered privately, and makes no claim about it. The evidence here concerns what is and is not printed on the public record.

4. WHETHER "RIDDIM BABY LTD" OR "TUMBLAR" ARE REGISTERED COMPANIES ANYWHERE. Neither exists on the UK register. A Companies House name search for "Tumblar", fetched and read 10 October 2026, returned zero company results. A search for "Riddim Baby" returned 20 companies containing the word "Riddim", none of them named Riddim Baby or Riddim Baby Ltd. Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission exposes no public search endpoint to this desk and was NOT checked; a Nigerian registration can therefore neither be confirmed nor excluded. The "Ltd" suffix on the credit line is an assertion by whoever supplied the metadata, not something this desk has verified against any register.

5. A CORRECTION TO THIS DESK'S OWN WORKING NOTES. The brief for this record stated that a Companies House search for "Riddim Baby" returned zero results. On re-running and reading that search directly it returns 20 fuzzy matches on "Riddim". None is Riddim Baby, so the conclusion stands, but the phrase "zero results" was inaccurate and is not used. Separately, the Companies House results page embeds a hidden "no-results-js" template on every response, so a naive text match for "No results found" returns a false positive even for searches that do return hits; genuine nil returns were confirmed here by counting rendered company links.

6. A REGISTRY CONTRADICTION ON TWO THIRD-PARTY RELEASES, FLAGGED NOT RESOLVED. For the single "SKILLS" (5 December 2025), a collaboration led by KJ Spio and NSG, Apple's phonogram line reads "Boy Alone / Eagle Plug" while Deezer's label field reads "Ziiki Media". For "Deep" (20 February 2025), led by Phyno, Apple reads "Penthauze / MAD Solutions LLC" and Deezer reads "Penthauze". These are releases led by other artists on which FAVE features, so no claim about her own rights is built on either, but the disagreement between the two registries is recorded.

7. FOUR OF THE 42 APPLE ENTRIES ARE RELEASES LED BY OTHER ARTISTS on which FAVE is a featured credit (Remilondon, Bloody Civilian, SuperSmashBroz, Femi Jr). Their phonogram lines name those artists' labels, including Universal Music Operations Limited and LVRN, and say nothing about FAVE's own rights. They are excluded from the credit chronology above.

8. EMPAWA NAME DRIFT, A FINDING NOT AN ACCUSATION. The credit "emPawa Africa Limited" continued to appear on FAVE releases through Scatta Scatta (21 October 2022), roughly eleven months after that ceased to be the company's legal name. Companies House records company 12412587 as EMPAWA AFRICA MUSIC SERVICES LIMITED, with the previous name EMPAWA AFRICA LIMITED held from 20 January 2020 to 10 November 2021. Stale label strings on release metadata are commonplace and this is recorded as a drift between the register and the product, not as an allegation of wrongdoing by any party.

9. NO PARTY WAS REACHED FOR COMMENT before this record was created. Atlantic Records, Bad Habit, emPawa Africa, ONErpm, Tumblar and FAVE have not been asked to comment on the credit chronology set out here.

Deal sheet

Two newsletters. Zero fluff. Take your pick.

Cookies on Afrobeats Wire

Cookie preferences