Kobalt Signed Mr Eazi’s emPawa to a Worldwide Publishing Deal in 2020. It Administers the Catalogue. emPawa’s Own UK Company Owns It.

In September 2020, Kobalt Music Group announced a worldwide publishing administration deal with emPawa Publishing, the publishing arm of Mr Eazi’s emPawa Africa. Kobalt handles collection, creative services and sync administration for emPawa’s catalogue. It does not own the copyrights. The company that does is emPawa Africa Music Publishing Services Limited, a UK entity Mr Eazi incorporated in January 2022 with himself as director, according to Companies House records checked directly for this record. In September 2025, the Kobalt executive who helped announce the 2020 deal, Miller Williams, left Kobalt to become emPawa’s own Head of Publishing, and days later Mr Eazi announced emPawa would start buying African catalogues outright, a different transaction entirely from anything Kobalt does. As of an April 2026 report on emPawa’s new royalty-tracking app, the original Kobalt administration relationship was still described as active.

What Kobalt actually signed in 2020

Kobalt announced the deal in early September 2020, in a release covered independently by Music Business Worldwide and Music Week within a day of each other, both naming the same structure: publishing administration, creative services and sync representation covering emPawa’s existing catalogue and future works, worldwide. Kobalt’s own newsroom page for the announcement returns an HTTP 403 response to automated requests from this server, the same restriction this site has hit on a separate Kobalt deal record, so this piece relies on the two independent trade accounts rather than Kobalt’s original text. Both describe the same terms closely enough, including matching executive quotes, that the underlying release is not in doubt.

Laurent Hubert, Kobalt’s CEO at the time, was quoted saying Mr Eazi’s team had “built up an impressive catalog in a short amount of time.” Mr Eazi framed the deal around Kobalt’s technology, saying it would let emPawa “account properly in real time to everyone we represent.” A third Kobalt executive quoted in both accounts, Miller Williams, then Kobalt’s SVP of Creative for the UK, said he was “delighted that Mr Eazi and his team have chosen Kobalt.” Administration is the least invasive of the standard publishing deal structures: the administrator collects royalties and pursues sync placements on the rights holder’s behalf for a fee, but ownership of the underlying copyright never moves. Neither trade account, and no statement from either company, described any change of ownership, and an administration structure is consistent with Kobalt’s own public description of its business model, which does not take copyright ownership of any catalogue it services.

Where the ownership actually sits

If Kobalt does not own emPawa’s publishing, the next question is who does. The answer is a UK company: emPawa Africa Music Publishing Services Limited, company number 13875443, incorporated on 27 January 2022 and registered at an address in Pinner, London. Its Companies House record, checked directly for this piece, lists Standard Industrial Classification code 59200, sound recording and music publishing activities, and names two active directors: Oluwatosin Oluwole Ajibade, a Nigerian national whose date of birth matches Mr Eazi’s known public age, and Yasmin Baba, a British national, both appointed on the date of incorporation. Mr Eazi’s legal name is publicly established as Oluwatosin Oluwole Ajibade in prior reporting on his career, which this record treats as sufficient to identify him as the company’s director rather than a namesake.

The company’s filing history shows a compulsory strike-off action opened against it in December 2023, a standard Companies House process triggered by a missed filing, which was discontinued the following month once the company brought its filings current. Its most recent confirmation statement was filed in February 2026 and its most recent accounts, filed under the small-company total exemption regime, cover the year to 31 January 2025. The company remains listed as active. None of this establishes what specific songs or writer agreements sit inside this entity, which Companies House records do not disclose, but it does establish that emPawa Africa’s publishing business is legally organised as Mr Eazi’s own UK company, administered by Kobalt rather than owned by it.

The same executive, on both sides of the relationship

The clearest sign that the Kobalt deal and emPawa’s own ambitions are two different things, not one evolving relationship, is a hire. In September 2025, trade coverage reported that emPawa Africa had appointed Miller Williams as its Head of Publishing. He is the same Miller Williams who spoke for Kobalt when the 2020 administration deal was announced, by then risen to Senior Vice President of Creative at Kobalt over the intervening five years. Mr Eazi’s statement on the hire credited Williams’ “expertise and global network” with strengthening emPawa’s push to put African creators “on the world stage.” No source reviewed for this record states that Williams’ move altered or ended the Kobalt administration agreement itself, and a separate April 2026 report on the launch of emPawa’s own royalty-tracking mobile app describes emPawa as still partnering with Kobalt Music Group for global publishing support, present tense, seven months after Williams changed employers.

Within days of the Williams appointment, on 15 September 2025, Mr Eazi posted directly on X that emPawa Africa would begin acquiring African music catalogues, inviting rights holders with documentary proof of ownership and at least three years of earnings history to come forward. That is a different kind of transaction from anything else in this record. Administration, which Kobalt provides to emPawa, leaves ownership where it started. An outright catalogue acquisition, which emPawa says it now wants to do to other artists’ works, moves ownership to the buyer. No source reviewed identifies a specific catalogue emPawa has actually bought under this initiative as of this record’s publication; it remains a stated intention and a call for sellers, not a completed deal, and this record does not treat it as one.

What this means for artists

If a Nigerian or other African songwriter is weighing an approach from emPawa, or from any publisher offering “administration,” the distinction documented here is the one to ask about directly. Administration means the publisher collects and chases sync placements on your behalf for a cut of what comes in; your copyright stays yours, or stays with whatever company you already assigned it to. It is reversible in a way ownership sales are not: administration deals run for a term and can end, while a sold catalogue does not come back. Ask which of the two you are being offered, in those exact words, before signing anything described only as a “partnership” or a “deal.”

If emPawa or a comparable buyer approaches you about selling a catalogue outright, treat Mr Eazi’s own stated criteria as a floor, not a target: three years of earnings history and documentary proof of ownership is what he has said publicly he wants to see before making an offer, which means a catalogue without a clean, provable ownership trail is not yet in a position to be sold to anyone, on any terms. Get your own registrations, splits and prior contracts in order first.

Check who actually holds your rights today by asking for the name of the contracting legal entity, not the brand name on the announcement. “emPawa” the brand and “Kobalt” the administrator are not the same thing as “emPawa Africa Music Publishing Services Limited,” the specific UK company whose Companies House filings are the closest thing to a public paper trail this record could find. A songwriter’s actual counterparty is whichever entity is named in their own contract, and that name is worth confirming rather than assuming from a press release.

Limits of this record. The 2020 deal’s structure and executive quotes are drawn from two independently published trade accounts, both fetched and read directly for this piece; Kobalt’s own newsroom page returns an HTTP 403 response to automated requests from this server and could not be read directly, so no figure or term beyond what both trade accounts corroborate is stated here. No consideration or fee structure for the Kobalt administration deal was disclosed by either party in any source reviewed. The claim that the 2020 agreement remained active in 2026 rests on a single April 2026 trade report describing it in the present tense, not on a fresh statement from either company, and is presented with that limit. The UK Companies House record for emPawa Africa Music Publishing Services Limited was read directly and is a primary regulatory filing; it confirms the company’s existence, directors and active status, not the contents of any specific songwriter agreement inside it. Mr Eazi’s September 2025 catalogue-acquisition announcement is treated here as a stated business intention, sourced to his own direct statement, not as a completed transaction, because no source reviewed names a specific catalogue emPawa has acquired under it.