Deal sheet
- Status
- Confirmed as a credit, unresolved as an entity. The exclusive licence is recorded verbatim on 18 of 40 releases carrying the Banku Music label across two independent platform catalogues. The licensee resolves to a live UK company that was renamed on 10 November 2021. The licensor resolves to no live registered entity on any register this desk could check. No consideration, territory or term is disclosed anywhere.
- Type
- Licensing
- Parties
- Banku Music, emPawa Africa
- Amount
- Not disclosed
- Rights covered
- Master recordings (sound recording copyright). Banku Music is named as phonogram owner; emPawa Africa Limited is named as exclusive licensee. The credit covers recordings only. Publishing in the Mr Eazi/emPawa orbit is administered separately and is not covered by this licence.
- Territory
- Not specified in the source documents. The credit records an exclusive licence without naming a territory or a term.
- Announced
- 2019-07-19
- Primary document
- Rights registry
- Sources
- Apple Music catalogue metadata for Mr Eazi (artist 638430219), 200 collections, read 12 October 2026 · Deezer label index for Banku Music: 40 albums, each album record fetched individually for its exact label string · Deezer record for Joeboy, Somewhere Between Beauty & Magic (4 February 2021): label "Banku Music Under Exclusive License to emPawa Africa Limited" · Deezer record for Joeboy, Baby (1 March 2019): label "Banku Music", no licensee named · Deezer record for King Promise, Tokyo (7 December 2018): label "Legacy Life Entertainment under license to Banku Music", the reverse posture · MusicBrainz label record: area Ghana, no label code, no ISNI, no IPI, no parent or distribution relationship · Companies House: BANKU MUSIC LIMITED, incorporated 3 February 2020, dissolved 13 October 2020 · Companies House filing history for 12436878: DS01 strike-off 23 June 2020, GAZ1(A) 30 June 2020, GAZ2(A) 13 October 2020. No accounts, no confirmation statement. · Companies House PSC for 12436878: Mr Oluwatosin Ajibade, 75 per cent or more of shares and voting rights · Companies House: EMPAWA AFRICA MUSIC SERVICES LIMITED, previously EMPAWA AFRICA LIMITED from 20 January 2020 to 10 November 2021 · Companies House officers for 12412587: Ajibade appointed 20 January 2020
Read this before citing: This record documents what two platform rights registries and the UK companies register say, which is not the same as the underlying contract. Three limits. First, a phonogram credit is label-supplied metadata, not a filed instrument: it evidences an asserted licence, not its terms. Second, platform credit lines carry the original recording year but reflect current metadata, so a credit naming emPawa Africa Limited on a 2019 release does not prove that company held the licence in 2019; it was not incorporated in the UK until 20 January 2020. Third, this desk does not state that the "Banku Music" named in the credit is BANKU MUSIC LIMITED (UK 12436878). The finding is that the credit cannot be matched to any live registered entity, and that the only UK company of that name existed for eight months in 2020.
