Sony Music Publishing Signed Ghana’s E.L in February 2026. His Own VONation Label Still Owns the Masters.

On 10 February 2026, Sony Music Publishing’s West Africa office signed Ghanaian rapper E.L (Elom Adablah) to a publishing deal, announced by the company itself and confirmed by three independent Ghanaian trade outlets within two days. The deal covers E.L’s songwriting catalogue: the compositions themselves, the royalties they generate, and the sync licensing opportunities built on top of them. It does not cover his master recordings, which have sat with his own label, VONation, since 2017 and have been distributed globally through ONErpm since March 2023. One outlet, The Herald Ghana, reports that the deal was brokered by Skillions Global Limited, a UK-registered talent management company; no other outlet reviewed repeats that detail, and no source discloses a fee, a royalty split or a contract length.

What was actually signed

Sony Music Publishing West Africa announced the signing on its own Instagram account, saying it was “thrilled to announce EL as the newest member of the SMP family.” E.L responded in a video shared by the company: “I’m the newest member of the Sony Music Publishing family. I’m so excited and I feel so blessed.” GhanaWeb, The Herald Ghana and Asaase Radio each published matching accounts within the following two days, all describing the arrangement only as a “publishing deal” without specifying whether Sony now holds the copyright to E.L’s compositions outright, administers and collects on his behalf while he retains ownership, or acts as a sub-publisher under some other structure. That distinction determines who owns the songs when the relationship eventually ends, and none of the three accepted source types this deal was checked against, the company’s own announcement, or independent trade press, states it.

E.L described the agreement as “a strategic evolution” in his career, saying it was “important for me to align with a publisher that brings global infrastructure” and that “Sony’s reputation and respect for creators gave me confidence.” SMP’s own material lists him alongside Wizkid, Tems, Sarkodie, Lojay, 1da Banton and fellow Ghanaian producer MOG Beatz as part of its African roster.

Publishing, not masters

E.L already has an answer to who owns his recordings, and it predates this deal by nine years. He launched VONation as his own label in November 2017, after splitting from BBnZ Live, telling reporters at the time he wanted “to be more independent and make my personal decisions.” His manager, Stephan Acquaye, has run VONation day to day since. In March 2023, VONation moved its global distribution to ONErpm, with the distributor’s senior A&R Lucky Freeman calling E.L “a legendary artist and one of West Africa’s most versatile artists.” Nothing in the February 2026 Sony Music Publishing announcement, or in any coverage of it, connects Sony to E.L’s recordings in any way. The publisher administers what he writes; the label he owns still puts out what he records. Conflating the two, as coverage of African publishing deals routinely does by pairing the words “publishing” and “global” in the same sentence, would overstate what actually happened here.

The broker only one outlet named

The Herald Ghana’s account of the signing adds a detail the other two do not: “The deal was brokered in collaboration with Skillions Global.” Skillions Global Limited is a real, active company, UK Companies House number 12358261, incorporated in London on 11 December 2019 and registered under a SIC code for sound recording and music publishing activities. Its sole listed officer, Nuamah Paul Donkor, has held the sole director’s seat since incorporation. The name overlaps with, but is not shown by any source checked to be legally connected to, the unrelated Ghanaian collective and later record label also called Skillions, founded by Jayso around 2010, that E.L was part of earlier in his career. Skillions Global is also reported to represent Ghanaian singer TiTi Owusu, who signed her own Sony Music Publishing deal in July 2023 through the company’s Nigeria office, then run, as it still is, by managing director Godwin Tom. If that reporting is accurate, this is the second time an artist connected to the same London-registered broker has landed a Sony Music Publishing signing in West Africa. It is worth exactly what one uncorroborated trade account is worth: plausible, specific, and not yet confirmed anywhere else.

Whose “West Africa” office is this

Ghanaian coverage calls the signing party “Sony Music Publishing West Africa.” That office does not appear to be a new entity. Sony Music Publishing opened its first office in the region in Lagos in August 2022, naming Godwin Tom managing director; the company’s president of international, Guy Henderson, described the move at the time as Sony “enter[ing] West Africa” through that Nigerian base. No press release, newsroom post or filing found in the course of this investigation announces a rename, a spin-off, or a separate Ghana-specific legal entity since then. The likeliest reading is that “Sony Music Publishing West Africa” is the market-facing name for the same Lagos office Godwin Tom has run since 2022, now signing further into Ghana. No source states this directly, so it is presented here as the most consistent explanation available rather than a confirmed fact.

What could not be established

No source discloses what E.L is paid under this deal, what percentage Sony collects, how long the term runs, or what happens to the catalogue if either side ends the relationship. No source names who represented E.L’s publishing before February 2026, if anyone did. Ghana’s collecting society, GHAMRO, has no public repertoire search that could independently confirm who administers his compositions now, so that route was checked and found unavailable rather than simply skipped. Whether Sony Music Publishing West Africa is a distinct legal entity from Sony Music Publishing Nigeria, rather than the same office under a market name, could not be confirmed from any source reviewed.

What this means for artists

A songwriter reading this announcement should notice what it does not say before what it does. “Publishing deal” is not a legal term with one fixed meaning; it can describe a full sale of copyright, a collection agreement that leaves ownership untouched, or something in between, and a company’s own Instagram post is not obliged to specify which. If you sign one, get the actual mechanism, assignment, administration or sub-publishing, in writing and understood before you sign, not inferred from a press announcement afterward.

Separately, keep a clean line between who administers your songs and who releases your recordings, even when both relationships are healthy and both partners are reputable. E.L’s arrangement is a useful example specifically because it is not messy: VONation has owned his masters since 2017, ONErpm has distributed them since 2023, and Sony now administers his compositions from 2026, three different functions with three different partners and no overlap that any source describes. That clarity is worth naming explicitly in your own catalogue, because the artists who end up in ownership disputes are rarely the ones who wrote it down.

Limits of this record. The core signing is confirmed by Sony Music Publishing West Africa’s own Instagram announcement and by three independent Ghanaian trade accounts (GhanaWeb, The Herald Ghana, Asaase Radio) carrying matching quotes. The claim that Skillions Global Limited brokered the deal rests on The Herald Ghana alone; it is reported here as a single-sourced trade claim, not an established fact. Skillions Global Limited’s UK registration, director and SIC classification are drawn directly from Companies House and independently verified; no African corporate registry record for the company was available to check. No consideration, royalty rate, term or exit clause was disclosed by either party in any source reviewed. This record makes no claim about who represented E.L’s publishing before this deal, and none about the ownership of his master recordings beyond noting that VONation, his own label, is the entity that has issued them since 2017.