Def Jam Signed a Joint Venture With Nigeria’s NATIVE Records in 2022. One Artist’s Masters Show What That Actually Means, and One Doesn’t.

On 20 September 2022, Def Jam Recordings signed an exclusive worldwide joint venture with NATIVE Records, the Lagos and UK-based label arm of NATIVE Networks. It was, by Def Jam’s own description, the first joint venture the label had struck with an African company in its 38-year history. Three years and one platinum-charting mixtape later, the deal remains real, active and still missing the two numbers that would tell an artist what it is actually worth: no equity split and no financial terms have ever been disclosed.

Def Jam Recordings is the New York hip-hop label founded in 1984, now operating as a division of UMG Recordings, Inc., itself part of Universal Music Group. Tunji Balogun, a Nigerian-American executive who had worked with WizKid and Tems, took over as chairman and chief executive in January 2022 and struck the NATIVE deal eight months later. NATIVE Records is the music division of NATIVE Networks, the Lagos media company founded in 2016 by Seni “Chubbz” Saraki, Teni “Teezee” Zaccheaus, Shola Fagbemi, Addy Edgal and Suleiman Shittu, better known for its NATIVE magazine and NATIVELAND festival. The announcement was made jointly by Balogun and NATIVE’s co-founders, who called it “the first joint venture partnership with an African company in Def Jam’s legendary history.”

What the announcement actually said

The press language, repeated near-identically across the outlets that carried it, describes an “exclusive worldwide joint venture partnership agreement” under which NATIVE’s founders would “use their proven A&R sensibilities and extensive expertise and contacts in the creative community to sign and develop talent across the African musical diaspora.” That is a description of an A&R and talent-development arrangement. It is not, on its own, a description of who owns the resulting recordings, what percentage either side holds, or what happens to the copyright once an artist is signed. No source, including NATIVE’s own statement, discloses a stake, a fee, an advance commitment or a term length.

What the deal produced, and what that reveals

Two months after the announcement, on 23 November 2022, NATIVE Records signed its first act under the venture: the Enugu-born rapper Odumodublvck, alongside Lagos artist Smada. His run of singles that followed, “Picanto,” “Declan Rice” and “Dog Eat Dog II” among them, built toward his debut mixtape, Eziokwu, released 6 October 2023. That release is where the joint venture’s actual rights structure becomes visible, because the copyright line printed on the release itself, verified directly on its Apple Music listing, reads: “℗ 2023 ODUMODUBLVCK/NATIVE Records/Def Jam Recordings, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc.” A phonogram credit naming three parties is a statement about who holds or shares the sound-recording copyright. It confirms Def Jam Recordings, and by extension UMG Recordings, is a credited rights holder on this specific body of work, alongside NATIVE Records and the artist. It does not confirm a percentage split, and none has been published.

There is a second, separate transaction inside this story that most coverage collapses into the first. On 14 September 2023, three weeks before Eziokwu dropped, Odumodublvck signed an additional, exclusive deal directly with Def Jam Recordings in the United States. Reporting at the time treated this as an expansion of his existing arrangement rather than a replacement of it, timed to support his push into the US market. The practical effect is that Odumodublvck now sits under two overlapping agreements: the original NATIVE/Def Jam joint-venture signing and a direct US deal with Def Jam itself. Which rights each agreement actually covers, whether they duplicate, supersede or sit alongside each other, is not stated in any source available to this desk.

The joint venture is not applied uniformly across the roster

Rigo Kamp, an Abuja-born singer-songwriter introduced by NATIVE Records in 2024, offers a useful control case. His self-titled debut EP, released 3 April 2025, carries a copyright line of “℗ 2024 NATIVE Records” alone, verified directly on its Apple Music listing. No Def Jam or UMG credit appears anywhere on it. Whatever the joint venture between Def Jam and NATIVE actually is at the corporate level, it is not a blanket arrangement that automatically pulls every act signed to NATIVE Records into joint Def Jam ownership. Some releases carry the joint credit; others, including a full commercial EP from an artist NATIVE itself introduced, do not. That inconsistency is difficult to explain without knowing terms that neither party has published, and this piece does not attempt to guess at them.

A separate Def Jam entity this is not

The most common error available to make about this story is to fold it into Def Jam Africa, UMG’s own regional label, launched in Johannesburg and Lagos in May 2020 with a roster that has included Cassper Nyovest, Nasty C and Stonebwoy, and now run in francophone markets through a 2024 partnership with Wèrè Wèrè Music founder Binetou Sylla. Def Jam Africa is a UMG-owned regional imprint. The NATIVE Records joint venture is a separate, later arrangement between the US flagship label and an independent, Nigerian-founded media and label company that UMG does not appear to own any stake in, based on everything reviewed for this piece. Coverage of both deals frequently uses “Def Jam Africa” and “Def Jam’s African joint venture” interchangeably. They are not the same structure, and conflating them obscures rather than clarifies who actually signed what.

What is established, and what is not

Established, on the documentary record: the joint venture exists, was announced by named executives on both sides on 20 September 2022, and has produced commercially released, chart-noted music, including Odumodublvck’s Eziokwu and its deluxe edition, and Rigo Kamp’s 2025 debut EP, whose reception included a placement on Rolling Stone’s list of the best Afropop songs of the year for its opening track “Marathon.” The phonogram credit on Eziokwu establishes that Def Jam Recordings, as a division of UMG Recordings, Inc., holds or shares sound-recording rights on that specific project alongside NATIVE Records and the artist.

Not established, in any source checked for this piece, including the original announcement, NATIVE’s own site, trade coverage in Music Business Worldwide, Billboard, Variety and Music In Africa, and the press-release wire text: any equity stake either party holds in the other, any cash consideration, advance or minimum spend, the length of the venture’s term, or a definitive statement on whether NATIVE Records’ catalogue as a whole is now co-owned by Def Jam or whether ownership is negotiated release by release. Where this piece cannot establish a fact, it says so rather than filling the gap with what would be a reasonable guess.

What this means for artists

If a Nigerian or diaspora artist is approached by NATIVE Records today, the honest answer to “does this mean I’m signing to Def Jam” is: it depends on the paperwork you actually sign, not on the 2022 press release. The Eziokwu credit line shows that at least one artist’s masters carry joint NATIVE/Def Jam ownership. The Rigo Kamp EP shows that outcome is not automatic. An artist negotiating with NATIVE Records should ask directly, and get in writing, whether their specific recording agreement routes any rights to Def Jam or UMG, on what split, and for what territory and term, rather than assuming the 2022 joint-venture announcement answers that question for them. It does not.