Elizabeth Music Group Signed Tanzania’s Sanja Kong to a Worldwide Publishing Deal. The LLC Named in Its Own Footer Dissolved Five Years Before the Company Says It Was Founded

Elizabeth Music Group, a US-based independent publishing administrator, said on 5 August 2026 that it had signed Tanzanian Bongo Drill artist Sanja Kong to an “exclusive worldwide music publishing agreement.” By the company’s own description, what changed hands is the administration of Sanja Kong’s compositions, not his recordings: publishing representation, worldwide royalty collection, creative support and sync licensing. No consideration, advance, royalty split or term appears anywhere in the announcement, and no effective or signing date is given beyond the day the post went up.

The deal is Elizabeth Music Group’s first publicly announced Tanzanian signing, though the company frames it as part of a broader push: its own post describes “continued expansion across East Africa” and says the company already represents more than 140 musicians and over 6,000 songs worldwide. The company was founded, per its own account and a December 2025 trade profile, by producer and songwriter Zachary Michael, who operates under the name TheZachMichael and is quoted welcoming Sanja Kong “to the Elizabeth Music Group publishing family.” Michael describes Sanja Kong’s “unique blend of Bongo drill music” as the reason for signing him, and names three tracks, “Baba God,” “Loyal (featuring Lony Bway)” and “Game Changer,” as his standout releases.

Who exactly is making that promise is harder to establish than the announcement suggests. Elizabeth Music Group’s own website names its operating entity, in the site footer, as Elizabeth Records LLC. A search of Florida’s business registry turns up one company filed under that exact name: document number L18000292685, filed 21 December 2018 and administratively dissolved on 27 September 2019 for failing to file an annual report. That dissolution predates Elizabeth Music Group’s own stated May 2024 founding by almost five years, so nothing found ties the two together, and no other active registration under either name turned up in the United Kingdom’s Companies House register, the only other corporate registry this desk could search without a paywall or a login. Every piece of coverage of Elizabeth Music Group’s structure, growth and roster traced back to the company’s own site or to promotional features built from interviews with Michael. No independent reporting on its finances, ownership or legal status was located anywhere checked.

Sanja Kong’s own catalogue shows why the distinction between owning, administering and distributing matters here. The deal covers his compositions, which do not carry a visible rightsholder credit on consumer streaming platforms. His recordings do. Apple Music’s catalogue lists the phonogram credit on his 22 May 2026 single “Baba God” as “℗ 2026 Sanja Kong / ONErpm,” naming Sanja Kong himself as the sound-recording rightsholder and ONErpm, the independent distributor this desk has documented elsewhere in Africa, as his distributor. Deezer’s catalogue shows a release roughly every month going back to 2022 under his own name, consistent with an artist who has kept control of his masters throughout. Audiomack, however, lists his label on its own artist page as “Jungle Fam,” a name that returns no result in the United Kingdom’s company register and no result in MusicBrainz’s label index. No source obtained reconciles the Apple credit with the Audiomack one, and neither names Elizabeth Music Group, which is expected: publishing administrators do not normally appear in a phonogram credit, because that credit concerns the sound recording, not the composition underneath it.

Put together, the documented picture is this: Sanja Kong appears to hold his own masters and distribute them through ONErpm, per Apple’s own catalogue data. A separate, unverified label credit, Jungle Fam, appears on one streaming platform and nowhere else. And as of 5 August 2026, a US publishing administrator whose own named operating entity cannot be matched to any active business registration says it now administers his compositions worldwide. These are three different claims about three different rights, and only one of them, the Apple credit on the masters, is corroborated by more than a single party’s own statement.

For artists, the lesson is not that this deal is necessarily bad for Sanja Kong. Publishing administration deals are common, often reversible, and do not require giving up ownership of anything; a competent administrator collecting royalties an independent songwriter was not previously collecting can be a straightforward win. The lesson is in what to check before signing one. An artist offered a worldwide publishing deal by a company they have not worked with before should ask, and expect a straight answer on, three things: what jurisdiction the company is actually registered in and under what legal name, what happens to the compositions if the company itself stops operating, and whether “administration” in the contract means what it means here, collection and representation, rather than a transfer of copyright. None of those three questions is answered by a company’s own announcement of its own deal, which is exactly why they need asking directly, in writing, before signing.

What this record does not establish: the term of the agreement, any consideration or royalty split, whether Sanja Kong or his representatives have confirmed the deal anywhere independent of Elizabeth Music Group’s own site, what Jungle Fam is or whether it has any relationship to either party, and whether Elizabeth Records LLC, Elizabeth Music Group’s named operating entity, is currently registered anywhere. No contract was obtained. No party other than Elizabeth Music Group has described this deal anywhere this desk could find.