Shatta Wale Says He Sold ‘On God’ to Waka Music Limited for $3.5 Million in 2025. Apple Music Has Credited the Company on the Song Since Its 2022 Release.

Shatta Wale told an X Space audience on 19 August 2025 that he had sold his 2022 single “On God” for $3.5 million, and mentioned a “$20 million catalogue” in the same breath. Five months later, in a TikTok live session on 15 January 2026, he gave a different account: $3 million, for 300 of his songs, out of what he said were more than 11,000 tracks online. Neither figure has been confirmed by the company he names as the buyer, Waka Music Limited, which has issued no public statement on a purchase, a price, or which recordings are covered.

What can be checked independently, and what this record establishes, is what Apple Music and Deezer have actually printed on Shatta Wale’s releases as far back as 2018. Those phonogram credits tell a story that does not line up neatly with either of his public figures.

What the credits actually show

“Shito,” released in March 2018, carries both a phonogram and copyright credit for Waka Music Limited. The 2018 album Reign, in its current restored Apple Music listing, carries the same “℗ 2018 Waka Music Limited” line. “On God,” the song Shatta Wale specifically named in his $3.5 million claim, was released on 5 April 2022 already credited to Waka Music Limited, more than three years before he publicly discussed selling it. “Only God,” released 10 August 2023, carries the identical Waka Music Limited credit.

Then the credit changes. SAFA, Shatta Wale’s album released 20 September 2024, is credited to “Shatta Movement Records/Damaka Group of Companies,” his own imprint, not Waka Music Limited. The Voice of the Crown EP, released 7 August 2025, just twelve days before his X Space claim, carries the same Shatta Movement Records/Damaka Group of Companies credit. By the time he stood up in public to describe selling a catalogue to Waka Music Limited, his own most recent releases had already moved off that company’s credit line and onto his own.

Put plainly: the recording he says he sold for $3.5 million had carried a Waka Music Limited credit since 2022, and his newest work by August 2025 did not carry that credit at all. The public claim and the public paper trail describe two different timelines.

What this does and does not prove

This is not proof that no sale happened. A phonogram credit is a distributor-facing label, not a signed contract, and Waka Music Limited could plausibly have held an administration, distribution or licensing arrangement over Shatta Wale’s older catalogue for years before any new transaction in 2025 changed its terms, a scenario the credit history is fully consistent with. What the credits do establish is that Shatta Wale’s own account of a fresh 2025 sale of “On God” cannot be reconciled, on the evidence checked, with a song that had already carried that company’s name for three years. Whatever changed hands in 2025, if anything did, has not been described consistently by the one person making the claim.

Waka Music Limited is not a Ghanaian company this publication could verify through a public registry. Ghana’s corporate register has no public search tool. A UK Companies House search returns no exact match, only an unrelated company called Waka Musical UK Ltd, incorporated in London in September 2023. A Hong Kong company of the identical name, Waka Music Limited, CR 3243193, was incorporated on 8 March 2023 and remains listed as live on that jurisdiction’s public register, but no document seen ties that Hong Kong entity to the company operating on Ghanaian artists’ DSP credits. The two could be the same company operating through a Hong Kong holding structure, or they could simply share a name.

Not an isolated case

Shatta Wale is one of at least 14 Ghanaian artists Ghanaian entertainment press has named in connection with Waka Music Limited catalogue deals since August 2025, a list that also includes Sarkodie, Kuami Eugene, Lasmid, Fameye, Mr Drew and Stonebwoy. The duo Keche have separately said they were approached by the same company to buy their catalogue, though they say they did not pursue the conversation. None of these other reported arrangements are covered by this record, and each would need its own credit-line check before any claim about them could be verified.

The story around Shatta Wale’s catalogue surfaced publicly after producer MOG Beatz alleged on 18 August 2025 that Shatta Wale had used 25 beats MOG produced without payment or credit, as part of whatever was sold to Waka Music Limited, and pulled his production credit from the Reign and Wondaboy albums on Apple Music in protest. That dispute was reported settled in December 2025, with neither side disclosing terms.

What this means for artists

A phonogram credit changes when a distributor tells the DSP it has changed, and nothing else. It does not require a public announcement, and artists rarely explain a credit switch when it happens quietly between one release and the next. That makes the credit line one of the few pieces of a catalogue deal an outsider can actually check, and also one of the easiest things for an artist to describe inconsistently after the fact, whether from imprecise memory, a wish to inflate a number in an argument, or an actual mix of separate deals being folded into one public claim.

For artists weighing a catalogue or masters deal with any company, Ghanaian, Nigerian or otherwise, this case is a reminder to keep their own paper trail. A term sheet, a split sheet, a dated contract naming exactly which recordings are covered, and at what price, protects an artist more than any later public statement can. Producers and co-writers should treat DSP credit switches on songs they worked on as a prompt to ask directly what changed and whether they are still owed anything under it, rather than learning about a sale from a social media argument months or years later.