Deal sheet
- Type
- Settlement
- Parties
- G-Worldwide Entertainment, Flyboy I.N.C., EMPIRE
- Amount
- Not disclosed
- Rights covered
- Kizz Daniel states he has recovered the master recording rights to his 2016 debut album New Era and the singles Yeba (2017) and Sofa (2017) from his former label, G-Worldwide Entertainment. He posted the claim directly, in his own name, on 9 June 2025: 'From long nights in the studio to several mediations, FINALLY, I NOW OWN EVERY SONG ON THE New Era album 2016 + YEBA & SOFA (singles) — I GOT MY MASTERS BACK.' No transfer agreement, assignment document or confirming statement from G-Worldwide has been made public. Checked against Apple Music's own catalogue metadata more than a year later, on 28 August 2026, the phonogram (P-line) credit on all three releases still names G-Worldwide Entertainment as rights holder, not Kizz Daniel or his own label, Flyboy I.N.C.
- Territory
- Nigeria. G-Worldwide Entertainment is a Lagos-based label founded by Festus Ehimare (Emperor Geezy). Kizz Daniel's own label, Flyboy I.N.C., is also Nigeria-based; its worldwide distribution, recording and publishing partner since June 2020 is EMPIRE, the San Francisco-headquartered independent.
- Announced
- 2025-06-09
- Primary document
- Trade press
- Sources
- Trade report of Kizz Daniel's 9 June 2025 public statement reclaiming masters, carrying his statement in full · Apple Music listing for New Era (2016), phonogram credit verified live on 28 August 2026: '℗ 2025 G-Worldwide Entertainment' · Apple Music listing for Yeba (2017), phonogram credit verified live on 28 August 2026: '℗ 2017 G-Worldwide Entertainment' · Apple Music listing for Sofa (2017), phonogram credit verified live on 28 August 2026: '℗ 2017 G-Worldwide Entertainment' · Apple Music listing for Police (2025), a current Kizz Daniel release, phonogram credit verified live: '℗ 2025 FlyBoy INC / EMPIRE', showing the active Flyboy/EMPIRE credit used on his post-2020 catalogue for contrast with the New Era-era catalogue above · Trade report of EMPIRE's own 18 June 2020 social media announcement signing Kizz Daniel: 'Welcome to the EMPIRE family' · Trade report dated 11 April 2022 confirming the 2017 G-Worldwide lawsuit (₦500m, over New Era and the unreleased Evolution album) was settled out of court, with a direct quote from G-Worldwide's then talent manager Louiza Williams: 'There is no more issue between us and Kizz Daniel. We are both fine now.'
Read this before citing: No source, including Kizz Daniel's own statement, discloses the mechanism of the reversion: no assignment deed, copyright registration filing, or figure paid is public. G-Worldwide has not issued any public statement confirming or denying that it transferred the masters; the only on-record G-Worldwide comment found dates to April 2022, three years before the claim, and addressed the personal relationship, not rights ('there is no more issue between us… we are both fine now'), not any transfer of IP. DSP phonogram credit lines are not themselves proof of legal ownership: labels and distributors can be slow to update metadata after a real transfer closes, and Apple Music's credit may simply be stale rather than contradicting a genuine reversion. That caveat cuts both ways and this record does not resolve it; it states what Kizz Daniel said, what G-Worldwide has and has not said, and what the metadata shows on the date checked, without asserting which is legally correct. The 'Evolution' album G-Worldwide referenced in its 2017 suit was never commercially released and is not covered by this record.
Standards note, 7 September 2026: this record's supporting citations (6 documents) were stored across multiple database rows and only the first was rendering publicly. All 6 now render below. No claim in this record changed.
Kizz Daniel told his fans on 9 June 2025 that a years-long fight over his first masters was over. “From long nights in the studio to several mediations, FINALLY, I NOW OWN EVERY SONG ON THE ‘New Era album’ 2016 + YEBA & SOFA (singles),” he wrote. “I GOT MY MASTERS BACK.” More than a year later, the copyright line on those same recordings, as they sit on Apple Music today, still names his former label, G-Worldwide Entertainment.
A relationship that ended in a ₦500 million lawsuit
Kizz Daniel, born Anidugbe Oluwatobiloba Daniel and performing at the time as Kiss Daniel, signed to the Lagos label G-Worldwide Entertainment in 2013. The label, founded and run by Festus Ehimare, known as Emperor Geezy, built him into one of Nigeria’s biggest young pop stars off the back of New Era, released in 2016, and the singles Yeba and Sofa.
The partnership broke down in 2017. G-Worldwide filed a breach-of-contract suit reported at ₦500 million, and in December 2017 the label also obtained an injunction concerning New Era and a then-unreleased second album called Evolution. Around the same time, the artist dropped the name Kiss Daniel and began performing as Kizz Daniel, a change that tracked directly with the split. The full contract between the two sides was never made public, so the exact terms in dispute, including what rights G-Worldwide claimed over which recordings, are not established from documents available here.
The case did not end in a published court ruling. A report carrying an on-record comment from G-Worldwide’s then talent manager, Louiza Williams, in April 2022 described the matter as settled out of court. “There’s no more issue between us and Kizz Daniel,” she said. “We are both fine now.” That statement addresses the state of the relationship between the two camps. It does not address who owned the masters to New Era, Yeba or Sofa going forward, and no separate statement from G-Worldwide on the ownership question is public.
A new label, and a deal with EMPIRE
Kizz Daniel founded his own imprint, Flyboy I.N.C., in November 2017, the same window as the split from G-Worldwide. Nothing here establishes that Flyboy I.N.C. acquired any rights to the G-Worldwide-era catalogue at that time; the label functioned going forward as the home for his new work.
In June 2020, the American independent EMPIRE announced Kizz Daniel had joined its roster, posting “Welcome to the EMPIRE family” alongside the artist. EMPIRE has operated as his distribution and release partner since. The phonogram credit on his current singles, including Police, a 2025 collaboration with Angélique Kidjo and Johnny Drille, reads “FlyBoy INC / EMPIRE,” consistent with a distribution arrangement running through his own label rather than a transfer of his catalogue to EMPIRE itself.
What the copyright line shows, and where it does not match the claim
A phonogram, or ℗, line is a recording’s copyright credit, ordinarily naming whoever currently controls the master recording as far as the metadata has been updated. It is not a court filing and not proof of legal title on its own, but it is the clearest publicly visible marker of who a distributor understands to hold the recording rights, and it is what listeners and platforms actually see.
Checked directly on Apple Music on 28 August 2026, more than a year after Kizz Daniel’s statement, the three recordings he named still carry G-Worldwide’s credit:
- New Era (the album): “℗ 2025 G-Worldwide Entertainment”
- Yeba: “℗ 2017 G-Worldwide Entertainment”
- Sofa: “℗ 2017 G-Worldwide Entertainment”
The New Era credit carrying a 2025 date on an album originally released in 2016 suggests the entry was touched or reissued that year, which sits inside the window of his statement. But the credited owner on that touched entry is still G-Worldwide, not Kizz Daniel or Flyboy I.N.C. Yeba and Sofa show no comparable update at all; their credits are unchanged from the G-Worldwide era.
By contrast, Police, released through his current arrangement, is credited “℗ 2025 FlyBoy INC / EMPIRE,” exactly what a working distribution deal with rights sitting under his own imprint would look like on a DSP.
What is established, and what is not
Established from documents read directly for this piece: the 2013 signing, the 2017 breakup and lawsuit, the December 2017 injunction, the name change, the April 2022 report of an out-of-court settlement with a named G-Worldwide representative on record, the November 2017 founding of Flyboy I.N.C., the June 2020 EMPIRE deal, Kizz Daniel’s own June 2025 public claim to have recovered the New Era masters plus Yeba and Sofa, and the state of the Apple Music phonogram lines on those three works as of 28 August 2026.
Not established: any signed transfer, assignment or settlement document covering the masters; any statement from G-Worldwide confirming or disputing a transfer since the 2022 settlement report; the specific terms of the original 2013 contract; and, most directly, why a distributor-facing rights credit that a full year had passed to update still names the label the artist says he no longer needs to deal with.
There is a caveat that cuts the other way too. DSP metadata can lag behind real-world rights changes by months, sometimes longer, if nobody files an update with the distributor carrying the catalogue. A recovered master with an unupdated credit is not unheard of, and this record does not treat the G-Worldwide phonogram line as proof that his claim is false, only as the best available public evidence that, as of the date checked, no visible change has followed his statement.
What this means for artists
A public statement that you have your masters back is not the same thing as a rights database reflecting it. For any artist who has been through a label dispute, the practical end of the story is not the tweet, the interview or even the settlement, it is whichever party’s name is sitting in the copyright metadata that distributors, DSPs and collection societies actually read. If that metadata is not updated, royalty flows, sync licensing requests and even basic questions of who can legally approve a use of the recording can keep running through the old structure regardless of what either side has said publicly.
Artists who reach a settlement or win back catalogue rights need the win to show up in three places, not one: the signed agreement, the distributor’s internal rights ledger, and the public-facing credit on every platform carrying the music. Kizz Daniel’s case, more than a year after his own announcement, is a working example of how the first can happen without the third following automatically. Until G-Worldwide or Kizz Daniel’s camp puts a document or a further statement on record addressing that gap directly, the recordings he named remain credited, in the metadata anyone can check today, to the label he says he left behind.
