Bella Shmurda’s Masters Sit With Dangbana Republik. The ONErpm Exclusive Licence Line Disappeared From His 2026 Releases.

Status: partly established, partly unresolved. Bella Shmurda’s own recordings have carried Dangbana Republik as phonogram owner since May 2021. Between September 2022 and October 2025 he put out seventeen lead releases, and fifteen of them name ONErpm, fourteen in the specific wording of an exclusive licence. ONErpm has not appeared on a lead release since October 2025. Separately, a Nigerian label that claims to own the copyright in his earlier recordings re-delivered two of them to Apple Music under its own name in January 2022, five months after suing him.

Three distinct things are often collapsed into one in coverage of this artist: who owns the masters, who holds a licence to exploit them, and who once claimed to own the name. They resolve differently, and the credit line is the only one of the three that can be checked without a contract.

What his own catalogue shows, release by release

All lines read on 22 September 2026 from Apple’s catalogue lookup for artist ID 1455517405, checked against both the United States and Nigeria storefronts, which returned 178 identical entries, and from Deezer’s artist and album endpoints for artist ID 61061602. The table is a selection. Filtering the full 178 entries down to releases where Bella Shmurda is the primary billed artist, rather than a featured guest, leaves 38 lead releases, and the pattern described here is drawn from all 38.

The masters and the licence are not the same asset

From 22 September 2022 to 3 October 2025 the phonogram line on his own releases is worded with unusual consistency: Dangbana Republik owns, ONErpm holds an exclusive licence. That formulation matters. It says the sound recording copyright stayed with the artist’s own imprint and that ONErpm’s rights were contractual and time-limited rather than proprietary. A company that had bought the masters would appear as the phonogram owner, not as a licensee.

The run is not perfectly clean, and the exceptions are worth stating rather than smoothing. Of the seventeen lead releases in that window, fifteen name ONErpm. Fourteen use the exclusive-licence wording; “Loner” of 15 March 2024 uses the looser “Dangbana Republik / ONErpm”. Two name no licensee at all: “My Brother” of 6 October 2023 reads only “Dangbana Republik”, and “Shalaye” of 14 November 2024 reads “Dangbana Republik / Canny Consults”, reviving a company that had appeared on his 2019 and 2020 credits. Neither exception is explained by any source obtained. What survives the exceptions is the ownership half of the line, which does not vary: on all seventeen, the phonogram owner is Dangbana Republik.

The ONErpm relationship also predates Dangbana Republik and attached to the artist personally, not to the imprint. Deezer files his first release, “Vision 2020” of 7 March 2019, under the label string “Bella Shmurda / ONErpm”, and Apple carries “℗ 2020 Bella Shmurda / ONErpm” on “Colodia Drive Us” in March 2020. ONErpm’s own Nigeria page, dated 25 March 2021, names him in a quoted list of its “current African roster” alongside Flavour, Timaya, Laycon, Reminisce and others. That page names the artist. It does not name Dangbana Republik.

The 2026 break

ONErpm’s name has not appeared on a Bella Shmurda lead release since the “Sanity” album of 3 October 2025. He has released twice as lead artist since, and neither mentions the company. “ARA” on 23 April 2026 carries no imprint and no distributor at all, only the artist’s own name, on both Apple and Deezer. “Happy Song” on 14 August 2026 carries Dangbana Republik with no licensee attached. The barcode ranges also change: his 2025 releases sit in a 795149 prefix block, while ARA and Happy Song were issued on 747971 and 736084 respectively.

Two data points are not a trend, and the catalogue already contains two earlier releases where the licensee line went missing and then came back. That is the honest limit of what the metadata supports. What makes this instance different from the 2023 and 2024 gaps is its length, eleven months and counting, and the second signal below.

There is a second signal from the same imprint. Dangbana Republik’s other signed artist, FOLA, has two releases whose Deezer label field reads “Dangbana Republik Records / EMPIRE”, the album “catharsis” of 5 September 2025 and the single “it’s over” of 10 September 2026, both issued on barcodes in EMPIRE’s 199316 range. So while Bella Shmurda’s own October 2025 album still named ONErpm, his label was already putting a roster release out through a different distributor. Neither ONErpm nor Dangbana Republik nor EMPIRE has published anything describing a change, and this desk does not assert that the ONErpm agreement has ended. What is established is that the credit line stopped saying so.

The earlier catalogue is contested, and the metadata records the contest

In August 2021, One Word Global Records Limited brought a claim against the artist under his legal name, Akinbiyi Abiola Ahmed. Trade reporting of 2, 7 and 14 August 2021 describes the company seeking a declaration that it owned the trademark “Bella Shmurda” and the copyright in all musical works and recordings released under that name, an order restraining him from using the name or performing those works, and 200 million naira in damages for breach of contract. The company’s chief executive is named in that reporting as Prince Nkem Onyenwenu, who said that efforts to get the artist to listen “have proved abortive”. The contract was reported as due to expire in 2022, and the company alleged he had released music without consent, collaborated without consent, failed to remit royalties, and announced a signing to Dangbana Republik while the agreement subsisted.

The artist’s account, given on a podcast in December 2022 and reported on 11 and 14 December 2022, is materially different. He said he paid 20 million naira to buy himself out of a three-year contract after one year, that he and the label each put in 500,000 naira for production and promotion, and that on revenue from shows, streaming and endorsements “they would take 70 percent and give him 30 percent”. These two accounts cannot both be correct. If he exited after one year of a deal signed in 2019, the agreement was not subsisting in August 2021. This desk records both and adopts neither.

The metadata sits as a third witness and supports neither side cleanly. On 12 January 2022, five months after the claim was filed, “Only You” and “One Touch” were delivered to Apple Music again, as separate catalogue entries, carrying fresh 2022 phonogram years in the name Oneword Global Records. The 2019 originals remain live alongside them. A third recording, the Olamide-featuring version of “Vision 2020” dated 12 September 2019, carries a 2022 Oneword phonogram year on a 2019 release date, a mismatch this record flags and does not resolve. Whatever the legal position, the company was actively asserting phonogram ownership over that catalogue in 2022.

Deezer contradicts Apple on the same two recordings. The identical barcodes, 683332597617 and 683332601697, are filed on Deezer under the label “MYAIRPLAY”, not under any Oneword name. Two registries name two different companies for the same masters.

What this means for artists

The wording of a phonogram credit is the cheapest due diligence available to a Nigerian artist, and it is public. “Dangbana Republik, with exclusive license to ONErpm” is a fundamentally different deal from “℗ 2022 Oneword Global Records”. The first says an artist-owned company kept the asset and rented out the right to exploit it. The second says a third party is claiming the asset itself. An artist who can read that difference on a release page can tell, in about thirty seconds, whether a proposed deal leaves them owning anything.

The second lesson is that leaving a label does not clean up the catalogue you leave behind. Bella Shmurda has released continuously under his own imprint since May 2021 and still uses the name the claim sought to take from him, which suggests the trademark relief was not obtained. His 2019 recordings nonetheless sit on Apple Music today under another company’s phonogram credit, in two parallel sets, one of them delivered after the dispute began. Buyout money, if paid, does not automatically move metadata, and metadata is what pays.

What is not established

No contract between Bella Shmurda and One Word Global Records Limited, Dangbana Republik, ONErpm or EMPIRE was obtained, and no term, territory, royalty rate, advance or reversion clause appears in any source located. The outcome of the August 2021 claim could not be established: no judgment, settlement, withdrawal or court record was obtained, and no source located reports a resolution. The 20 million naira buyout and the 70/30 split rest solely on the artist’s own remarks as reported in December 2022 and are recorded here as his account, not as established terms; the company has not publicly responded to them. The company’s own name is inconsistent across sources, appearing as One Word Global Records Limited, One World Global Records, Oneword Global Records and OneWord Global Records, and Deezer files the disputed recordings under MYAIRPLAY instead; no corporate registration was obtained, because Nigeria’s CAC has no public API. Whether the ONErpm exclusive licence has expired, been terminated, or simply stopped being printed could not be established, and no party has commented. Whether Dangbana Republik has a distribution agreement with EMPIRE covering Bella Shmurda’s own recordings, as opposed to FOLA’s, is not established by any source obtained. The original “High Tension” EP is absent from both the United States and Nigeria Apple storefronts and from Deezer, so its credit could not be read. Publishing is entirely outside this record: no source obtained names a publisher or administrator for the compositions, and no PRO or MCSN registration was located. The 2023 single “OHEMA”, which MusicBrainz attaches to a label called Encore Recordings, was checked and excluded: Apple credits it to artist ID 1456464026, Victony, with Bella Shmurda as a featured guest, so its credit describes Victony’s arrangement and not his. No party was reached for comment before publication.