Deal sheet
- Status
- Chronology as the documents give it, and the order matters.
June 1996: Era's "Ameno" is released. MusicBrainz records a 1996 French single on Mercury Records, catalogue 578 884-2, a 1997 French single on Mercury, 574 652-2, and the self-titled Era album in 1996 on Mercury Records and Philips, 534 981-2. A 1999 French release of "Ameno" in the same registry carries the label credit "Universal Music", catalogue "Hors commerce 9175", which is the registry's own record of the label name changing over the same recording.
21 May 1998: Seagram files an 8-K reporting an agreement in principle to acquire PolyGram, PolyGram's parent, for $10.6 billion.
10 December 1998: per Seagram's later 10-K405/A, Seagram acquires 99.5 per cent of PolyGram for $8,607 million in cash plus approximately 47.9 million Seagram shares. The same filing states the music business is conducted through Universal Music Group and lists Mercury and Philips among its labels.
7 January 2022: "Ameno Amapiano" by Nektunez is dated on Apple and in MusicBrainz. 21 January 2022: "Ameno Amapiano Remix (You Wanna Bamba)" by Goya Menor & Nektunez. Both carry the same phonographic line today.
10 February 2022: Nektunez states on Ghanaian radio that Universal owned the sampled masters, that Sony cleared the licence, and that "I am now signed to Sony Music". He gives roughly 72.8 million streams across platforms and four weeks at number one on Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart. Both figures are his own claims in that interview and are recorded here as such, not independently confirmed.
8 and 9 March 2022: the signing announcement text appears, word for word, at two Ghanaian outlets a day apart. The producer's radio disclosure therefore precedes the formal announcement by roughly four weeks.
As at 12 October 2026 the phonographic line on both releases is unchanged and still names both B1 Recordings and Sony Music West Africa.
- Type
- Licensing
- Parties
- B1 Recordings, Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group
- Amount
- Not disclosed Not disclosed
- Rights covered
- NO transfer of any master, catalogue or copyright is evidenced by any source checked. Two distinct relationships are evidenced, and they must not be merged.
(1) A master-use clearance, inbound. Per Nektunez's own February 2022 statement, Universal owned the masters to the 1996 Era recording "Ameno" and required a full clearance for the amapiano reworking. He says Sony "helped me clear the license and everything" and that "right now this song is licensed to Sony Music". The grant direction, the licensor entity, the scope, the term, the territory and the royalty or fee are all undisclosed. Nothing states whether the clearance is a buyout, a fixed fee, a rolling royalty share or a co-ownership of the new recording.
(2) A new, separately owned derivative master. The phonographic line on BOTH 2022 releases, read 12 October 2026, is "(P) 2022 B1 Recordings, a Sony Music Entertainment company & Sony Music West Africa". Two named parties joined by an ampersand, a German Sony imprint and Sony's West Africa company. The ISRC on the remix recording, DEE862200008, carries a German registrant code, and the barcode 886449838677 sits in a Sony UPC block, so the registration flowed through a German registrant rather than a Ghanaian or Nigerian one.
(3) An artist signing, which is not a rights transfer in itself. The March 2022 announcement text says Nektunez "has signed a long term deal with Sony Music & B1recordings". It does not say whether that deal is a recording agreement, a production agreement, a licence from a Nektunez-owned entity or a distribution arrangement, and it discloses no term in years.
PUBLISHING: unaffected and unmoved by anything here. The composer credit on both 2022 releases remains "Eric Levi & Guy Protheroe", the writers of the 1996 composition, which the registry carries as work ISWC T-900.901.850-2. The composition travelled with the record. Who publishes or administers that composition, and on what split for the 2022 use, could NOT be established: ASCAP's repertory returned HTTP 403 to this server, BMI's repertory search returned an automated-traffic challenge, CISAC's ISWCnet is account-gated, and MusicBrainz records the writers and the ISWC but no publisher. Do not state a publisher for Ameno on the strength of this record.
- Territory
- The 2022 releases are worldwide. MusicBrainz records the remix release object as a single release event in area [Worldwide] (ISO 3166-1 code XW), dated 2022-01-07.
The territory of the inbound clearance from Universal is NOT disclosed by any source checked, and a worldwide release does not prove a worldwide grant: an equally consistent reading is a grant whose territory simply has not been published. Nektunez's own account describes a sequence, "Initially, before I uploaded, I secured a temporary license", then a "full clearance" once the record broke, which implies at least two successive grants of different scope. Neither is described territorially.
The signing announcement is territorially silent. Nektunez is described in it as "Atlanta based" and "US-based", and Sony Music West Africa is a Lagos company, but no source states which Sony entity contracts him or for which territories.
- Announced
- 2022-03-08
- Primary document
- Rights registry
- Sources
- Apple's own catalogue lookup endpoint for the two release IDs, read 12 October 2026. Returns, for both "Ameno Amapiano – Single" (id 1603626731, releaseDate 2022-01-07, primaryGenreName Afrobeats) and "Ameno Amapiano Remix (You Wanna Bamba) – Single" (id 1603826293, releaseDate 2022-01-21, artistName "Goya Menor & Nektunez", trackTimeMillis 227101), the identical copyright field: "(P) 2022 B1 Recordings, a Sony Music Entertainment company & Sony Music West Africa". · Apple release page for the remix, read 12 October 2026. Carries the phonographic line verbatim and the composer credit "Eric Levi & Guy Protheroe". Also prints "January 21, 2022 / 1 song, 3 minutes". · Direct statement from a named party, published 10 February 2022, reporting a Ghanaian radio interview. Nektunez: "but when the song became big, the Universal Record owns the masters to this song so they wanted us to do the full clearance. That was when Sony came in. The Sony Boss actually reached out himself when the song went viral and they helped me clear the license and everything." And: "So right now this song is licensed to Sony Music. I am now signed to Sony Music, they took care of the licensing and everything. Initially, before I uploaded, I secured a temporary license that enabled me to pop ut it on Apple Music and all that." (typo in original). The write-up adds that Nektunez "had been contacted by Universal Music who owned the masters to 'Ameno' to do a full clearance". No term, advance or consideration is given. · Earliest dated copy of the signing announcement text located, 8 March 2022: "The Atlanta based Ghanaian hitmaker, Nektunez, has signed a long term deal with Sony Music & B1recordings after the immense success of his record 'Ameno Amapiano remix'." Quotes Wolfgang Boss, Executive President of A&R, Sony Music, on "breaking the first African born producer artist on a global level". No term, advance, rate or equity disclosed. · Second copy of the identical announcement text, 9 March 2022, with the same quotes and the same follow-handle boilerplate. Word-for-word agreement between two outlets a day apart is consistent with distributed press-release text rather than independent reporting, and neither names a release date for the agreement itself. · MusicBrainz release object for the remix: date 2022-01-07, territory [Worldwide] (XW), status Official, barcode 886449838677, label credits B1 Recordings AND Columbia. · MusicBrainz recording for the remix: ISRC DEE862200008, length 228440ms, artist credit Goya Menor (Person, NG) & Nektunez (Person, GH). The recording carries NO work relationship, so the registry does not itself link it to the Ameno composition. · MusicBrainz work "Ameno", type Song, ISWC T-900.901.850-2, composer Eric Levi, lyricist Guy Protheroe. No publisher or administrator is recorded on the work. · MusicBrainz label entity B1 Recordings: Imprint, Germany, label code 16158, life span from 2007. Operated by B1M1 Recordings, Lda 2007 to 2014 and by B1 Recordings GmbH from 2014. Its logo relation resolves to a Sony Music Europe content delivery host. · MusicBrainz label entity B1 Recordings GmbH: Holding, Germany, from 2014, disambiguated as "a Sony Music Entertainment company", with a label-ownership relation from Sony Music Entertainment. · Seagram Co Ltd Form 8-K, period 21 May 1998: "The Seagram Company Ltd. … announced that it has reached an agreement in principle with Royal Philips Electronics N.V. … and PolyGram N.V. … to acquire PolyGram in a transaction valued at $10.6 billion. PolyGram will be combined with Universal Studios, Inc." · Seagram Co Ltd Form 10-K405/A: "On December 10, 1998, we acquired 99.5 percent of the outstanding shares of PolyGram N.V. … for $8,607 million in cash and approximately 47.9 million common shares of Seagram." Same filing: "The music business is conducted through Universal Music Group", and its label list includes "Mercury, Mercury Nashville" and, among classical labels, "Philips". These are the two labels credited on the 1996 Era releases, which is what makes the succession from PolyGram to Universal documentary rather than inferred.
Read this before citing: WHAT THIS RECORD DOES AND DOES NOT ESTABLISH. The words owns, administers, distributes and licenses are not interchangeable here and conflating them is the error this record exists to prevent.
OWNS: B1 Recordings and Sony Music West Africa are the two parties named on the phonographic line of the two 2022 recordings. A (P) line is a claim of ownership of that sound recording, printed by the party making it, and it is the best public evidence available. It is not a contract, and it does not disclose the split between the two named parties, which is undisclosed.
OWNS (the sampled recording): Universal is named as owner of the 1996 Era master by Nektunez, not by Universal. That statement is a direct statement from a named party about a third party's rights, which is weaker than Universal saying it. The registry chain and the two Seagram filings make it coherent rather than merely plausible: the 1996 releases are credited to Mercury Records and Philips, and Seagram's own 10-K405/A lists both labels inside Universal Music Group after the December 1998 PolyGram acquisition. But no Universal document naming "Ameno" was located, and the specific Universal entity that granted the clearance could NOT be established.
LICENSES: the clearance. One grant at least, probably two in sequence on Nektunez's own account. No term, territory, fee, rate or licensor entity disclosed.
DISTRIBUTES: not established. MusicBrainz credits the remix release to both B1 Recordings and Columbia, which is a Sony frontline label, and the (P) line names neither Columbia nor any distributor. Do not report Columbia as a party to the clearance or the signing on the strength of a registry label field.
ADMINISTERS: not established for anything on this record. See the publishing note in the rights field.
CONSIDERATION: not disclosed, anywhere, for anything. No advance, royalty rate, fee, equity, split or term figure appears in any source checked, and no party has published one since. "Not disclosed" is the answer, not a gap to be filled.
CONTRADICTIONS AND LIMITS, recorded rather than smoothed over.
1. Deal value. The 8-K announces the PolyGram transaction at $10.6 billion; the 10-K405/A records the completed consideration as $8,607 million in cash plus approximately 47.9 million Seagram shares. Both are accurate at their own dates. Do not quote $10.6 billion as the amount paid.
2. Label credit. The phonographic line names B1 Recordings and Sony Music West Africa. MusicBrainz credits the same release to B1 Recordings and Columbia. Columbia appears on no (P) line read here, and Sony Music West Africa appears in no registry label field read here. The two sources disagree on the second label.
3. Timing of the signing. Nektunez said on 10 February 2022 that he was already "now signed to Sony Music". The announcement text is dated 8 March 2022. Which date the agreement was executed could not be established.
4. Metadata is current, not historical. Apple's endpoints return today's credit strings. This record therefore establishes what the (P) line reads on 12 October 2026, and does NOT establish what it read in January 2022, before or during the clearance. Nektunez's reference to a "temporary license" before upload makes a credit change in that window plausible and unverified.
5. The registry does not link the two. MusicBrainz carries the Ameno composition with its ISWC and its two writers, and carries the 2022 recording with its ISRC, but records no work relationship between them. The composer credit on the 2022 releases comes from Apple, not from the registry's work graph.
6. Entity naming. The (P) line says "Sony Music West Africa". This publication's directory records the registered entity as Sony Music Entertainment West Africa Limited, Lagos. Which legal entity that trading name denotes cannot be settled from a credit string.
7. Not reached for comment: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, B1 Recordings, Sony Music West Africa, Nektunez and Goya Menor. No allegation of wrongdoing is made or supported by anything in this record.
8. Goya Menor's own position is not covered. Nothing fetched establishes what, if anything, he holds or signed in relation to either recording, or to whom. His Wikipedia entry carries a paid-editing notice and conflicting birth years and was not relied on.
All sources above were fetched and read on 12 October 2026 and each returned HTTP 200.
