Partisan Records Licensed Femi Kuti and Mádé Kuti Recordings to Chocolate City for Nigeria. Six Editions Carry the Credit, They Exist in No Other Storefront, and Neither Party Announced It.

Deal sheet

Status

IN FORCE ON THE EVIDENCE OF THE STOREFRONT AS AT 24 SEPTEMBER 2026. All six editions were live and returning the Chocolate City credit on that date. The Legacy + Nigerian page was additionally fetched in full and renders the string '℗ 2021 Chocolate City Music' on the page body.

NEVER ANNOUNCED, AND NOT CURRENTLY ACKNOWLEDGED BY EITHER PARTY. Chocolate City Music's own website was read in full on 24 September 2026. Its Artist page lists Young Jonn, Blaqbonez, Candy Bleakz, Tar1q, Major AJ and Noon Dave. Its Legacy Artist page lists MI Abaga, CKay, Ice Prince, Jesse Jagz, Nosa Omoregie, Victoria Kimani, Koker, Dice Ailes, Ruby Gyang, Brymo, DJ Lambo and DJ Cinch. Neither Femi Kuti nor Mádé Kuti appears on either page. Partisan Records' own Femi Kuti artist page was read in full and mentions neither Chocolate City nor any Nigerian arrangement.

NO EXPIRY ESTABLISHED. The term is not disclosed. The arrangement did not extend to Femi Kuti's next album: Journey Through Life, released 25 April 2025, returns a single edition reading 'Partisan Records' on the Nigerian storefront with no Chocolate City parallel.

Parties

Partisan Records, Chocolate City Group

Amount

Not disclosed

Rights covered

MASTER RECORDINGS. What is credited is the recorded-music copyright. The phonogram symbol governs sound recordings only. Nothing in this record is a statement about the compositions, which are a separate chain and were not established.

THE CREDIT IS INTERNALLY INCONSISTENT, AND THAT IS THE FINDING. Of the six Nigeria-only editions, two use explicit licence wording and four do not. On As We Struggle Everyday (Edit) and Stop The Hate the line reads 'Partisan Records under exclusive license to Chocolate City LTD'. That formulation keeps title with Partisan and grants Chocolate City the exclusive right to exploit. On Free Your Mind, Free Your Mind (Radio Edit), For(e)ward and Legacy + the line reads 'Chocolate City Music' alone, with no licensor named and no reservation of title to anyone. Read literally, the second form asserts that Chocolate City owns those recordings outright. The two forms were delivered for the same body of work, by the same parties, into the same storefront, within four months of each other.

THE DEAL RECORDED HERE IS THE LICENCE, NOT AN ASSIGNMENT. The only wording in any source that describes a legal relationship is 'under exclusive license'. No document located describes a sale, an assignment or a transfer of title. Where the credit names Chocolate City alone, that is recorded as an unexplained inconsistency in delivered metadata and NOT as evidence of a sale.

TWO ENTITY NAMES ARE USED FOR THE LICENSEE. 'Chocolate City Music' appears on four editions and 'Chocolate City LTD' on two. Whether these are the same registered entity could not be established. Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission has no public API and no manual lookup was performed. 'Chocolate City Music' is a recorded alias of Chocolate City Group in this directory.

THE WORLDWIDE POSITION IS UNAFFECTED. On the US, UK, French and South African storefronts every one of these recordings reads 'Partisan Records' and nothing else. The Nigerian arrangement sits beneath a Partisan position that is unchanged everywhere else.

NOT PART OF THIS DEAL. Distribution is a further layer and was not established for either party. Publishing was not established. Artist management is a separate and earlier relationship: Chocolate City sealed a management deal with Femi Kuti in December 2014 which its then chief executive Audu Maikori described on the record as covering business development, representation and booking local shows and concerts. Management is not a rights grant and is not treated here as one.

Territory

NIGERIA, ON THE EVIDENCE OF STOREFRONT AVAILABILITY, NOT ON THE EVIDENCE OF THE CONTRACT. The licence document is not public and its territory clause has not been read.

What was established is that the six editions carrying a Chocolate City credit are returned by the Apple catalogue endpoint for the Nigerian storefront and are returned by no other storefront tested. Four storefronts were tested for absence: United States, United Kingdom, France and South Africa. Three of the collection identifiers were additionally tested by direct page request: music.apple.com/ng returns HTTP 301 and resolves; music.apple.com/us returns HTTP 404 for the identical identifiers.

The Femi Kuti catalogue returns 30 album-level editions on the Nigerian storefront against 26 on the United States and 26 on the United Kingdom. The Mádé Kuti catalogue returns 17 on Nigeria against 13 on each of the other two. The surplus is the Nigeria-only set.

South Africa was tested specifically to check whether the grant was pan-African. It is not. The South African storefront carries the Partisan editions only.

Announced

2020-10-15

Primary document

Rights registry

Sources

Phonogram (P-line) credits delivered by the rights holder to Apple, returned by the iTunes Search API for artist 399130 (Femi Kuti), album entity, Nigerian storefront, retrieved 24 September 2026. Corroborated by the same endpoint for artist 1485018319 (Mádé Kuti) and by the US, GB, FR and ZA storefronts, in which the same collection identifiers return no result. · Apple iTunes Search API, Mádé Kuti, Nigerian storefront: the four Chocolate City editions of Free Your Mind, Free Your Mind (Radio Edit), For(e)ward and Legacy +. · The same catalogue on the United States storefront: no Chocolate City credit on any edition, and the pre-2008 UMG Recordings and Barclay phonogram lines. · South African storefront, tested to establish that the grant is Nigeria-specific rather than pan-African. · The Nigerian Apple Music page for Legacy +, fetched in full: the page body renders '℗ 2021 Chocolate City Music'. The identical identifier returns HTTP 404 on music.apple.com/us. · MusicBrainz label credits and catalogue numbers for the Femi Kuti catalogue: Wrasse WRASS228, Mercer Street DWT70054, Labelmaison LM 001, Knitting Factory KFR1113CD and KFR1142-2, Partisan PTKF2196 and PTSN3056-2. · Chocolate City Music's own current roster page. Neither Femi Kuti nor Mádé Kuti appears. · Chocolate City Music's own legacy roster page. Neither Femi Kuti nor Mádé Kuti appears. · Partisan Records' own Femi Kuti artist page. No mention of Chocolate City or of any Nigerian arrangement. · Trade report of December 2014 with direct quotes from both principals. Audu Maikori, then chief executive of Chocolate City, describes the deal as management covering business development, representation and booking local shows. Femi Kuti declined to disclose the terms. · Companies House search: no UK company named Partisan Records. · Companies House search: the only match is Kaiye Knitting Factory Co., Limited, 08201620, dissolved, unrelated. · Official Fela Kuti site: states that since 2008 the Kuti family has partnered with Knitting Factory Entertainment and Partisan Records to reissue the catalogue.

Read this before citing: ESTABLISHED. That six digital editions of Femi Kuti and Mádé Kuti recordings exist on the Nigerian Apple Music storefront carrying a Chocolate City phonogram credit, that the identical collection identifiers return no result on four other storefronts, and that two of the six describe the relationship in terms as 'Partisan Records under exclusive license to Chocolate City LTD'. Established from the Apple iTunes Search API on 24 September 2026, cross-checked against five storefronts, plus direct HTTP tests of three collection identifiers and a full page fetch of one.

NOT DISCLOSED. The consideration. No advance, royalty rate, minimum guarantee or lump sum appears in any source located. No figure is asserted in this record and none should be inferred.

DATE USED. The announced date recorded here, 15 October 2020, is the release date of the earliest Nigeria-only edition carrying the credit. It is NOT an announcement date, because there was no announcement, and it is NOT the date of the licence, which is not disclosed.

NOT ESTABLISHED, AND CHECKED. Whether 'Chocolate City Music' and 'Chocolate City LTD' are the same registered entity. Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission publishes no API. Whether Partisan Records and Knitting Factory Records Inc. are corporately related. Companies House was searched for both: no company of either name is on the UK register, and the only 'Knitting Factory' result, Kaiye Knitting Factory Co., Limited, number 08201620, is dissolved and unrelated. No United States state register was reachable. Whether the arrangement is still contractually in force, as distinct from the credit still appearing.

REGISTRY DIVERGENCE, RECORDED NOT SMOOTHED. MusicBrainz and Apple describe this catalogue differently and neither names the other's position. MusicBrainz release 28fa82df-512e-482a-9934-d411864a2600 (Legacy +, barcode 720841219507) records a single Partisan Records release with dated release events in roughly 190 countries, Nigeria among them. Apple's Nigerian storefront carries two parallel editions of the same album, one Partisan and one Chocolate City. These are not necessarily in conflict: a label credit records who released a record, a phonogram line records who owns or exclusively controls the recording. They are recorded here as divergent because a reader checking one registry would not find what the other shows.

A SEPARATE AND LARGER DIVERGENCE ON THE SAME CATALOGUE. Apple's worldwide phonogram line reads 'Partisan Records' on three albums whose label of record on MusicBrainz is someone else. Day By Day (2008) was issued on Wrasse Records (WRASS228, GB), Mercer Street Records (DWT70054, US) and Labelmaison (LM 001, FR). Africa For Africa (2011) and One People One World (2018) were issued on Knitting Factory Records (KFR1113CD and KFR1142-2). All three now read Partisan Records on the phonogram line worldwide. No document was located explaining when or how Partisan came to hold those recordings, and this record does not assert that it bought them.

A PARALLEL WORLDWIDE CONTRADICTION. No Place For My Dream (2013) is returned twice on every storefront tested, once as '℗ 2013 Label Maison' and once as '℗ 2013 Partisan Records'. Two live phonogram claims on the same album, delivered to the same service. Neither has been withdrawn.

WHAT THIS RECORD DOES NOT COVER. The pre-2008 Femi Kuti catalogue is not part of this deal and is separately owned. His 1995 debut reads 'A Tabu Records Release; ℗ 1995 UMG Recordings, Inc.' Shoki Shoki (1998) reads '℗ 2025 Barclay' and Fight to Win (2001) reads '℗ 2001 Barclay'. Barclay is a Universal Music France imprint. The 2025 phonogram year on a 1998 album indicates a re-delivery by the owner in 2025 and is not a change of owner.

MÁDÉ KUTI'S CURRENT POSITION IS OUTSIDE THIS DEAL AND IS RECORDED HERE ONLY TO PREVENT MISREADING. Since 2 May 2025 his releases, including the album Chapter 1: Where Does Happiness Come From? of 25 July 2025, read '℗ 2025 Mádé Kuti' on both the Nigerian and United States storefronts. Neither Partisan nor Chocolate City appears. No source located announces a departure, a reversion or a buy-back, and none is asserted.