Trade Press Calls Uncle Waffles an Encore Recordings Signing. Her Own Copyright Line Says KO-SIGN Distributes Through Encore, Not the Other Way Round.

Uncle Waffles is routinely described in music trade press as a signing to Encore Recordings, the Los Angeles label founded by former Interscope and Def Jam executive Joie Manda. Her own recorded catalogue tells a narrower story. Every commercial release since March 2023, read directly in Apple’s own catalogue metadata, carries the phonographic credit “KO-SIGN PTY LTD., Distributed exclusively for the world by Encore Recordings.” The masters sit with a South African company, not with Encore. Encore’s role, on the only document that actually states it, is distribution.

What changed in March 2023

Before 2023, Uncle Waffles’ catalogue carried a different credit entirely. Her breakout single “Tanzania” (16 March 2022) and the “Red Dragon” EP (30 March 2022) are both marked “℗ 2022 Kreativekornerr” in Apple’s own metadata, matching the South African creative agency that booked her early gigs and that Wikipedia still lists as her label of record. That is the period during which a viral, since-debunked rumour claimed Drake’s OVO Sound had signed her, after he shouted her out on Instagram; nothing in her actual catalogue credits ever supported that.

The credit changes with “Yahyuppiyah” (29 March 2023) and the ASYLUM EP (31 March 2023): “℗ 2023 KO-SIGN PTY LTD., Distributed exclusively for the world by Encore Recordings.” The same formula covers “Echoes” and the SOLACE EP that August, “Wadibusa” in April 2024, “4 Da Ho’s” that December, and TASTE and the 4 DA STREETS! EP as recently as April and May 2026, the most current releases checked for this record. Eighteen releases spanning four years were checked directly against Apple’s catalogue via its own search and lookup service; the KO-SIGN/Encore formula has held, without variation in wording, for more than three years.

Two releases outside that formula are collaborations rather than her own catalogue: “Waffle House” (May 2024) carries a Biko King Music credit, and a 2024 “Tanzania” reissue carries a Keinemusik credit, consistent with the standard practice of the primary artist’s label holding the phonographic credit on a feature. A 2026 collaboration, “Lwetse 2.0” with DJ Maphorisa, carries a New Money Gang Records credit “exclusively distributed under Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd,” an entirely separate arrangement from her own KO-SIGN catalogue and not part of this record.

Who Encore Recordings actually is

Encore Recordings is real, and its founding is well documented. Joie Manda announced the launch on 17 November 2021, in a Variety report carrying his own quotes: “I’m incredibly excited to build a new destination for creativity,” he said, describing an independent, full-service music company based in Beverly Hills and naming former Spotify global-hits head Ned Monahan as general manager from January 2022. Billboard Pro corroborated the launch the same day.

Manda’s own account of the company’s structure, given later to Music Business Worldwide, is specific: Encore and his publishing venture, Platinum Grammar, are “entirely self-owned” by him, operating under what he called a “strategic partnership” with The Orchard and Sony Music, a relationship he characterised as including direct access to Sony Music Group chairman Rob Stringer rather than as an equity stake or a joint venture. Encore is not a Sony subsidiary and not a UMG imprint. It is an independent company whose records move through Sony’s distribution infrastructure by arrangement, not by ownership.

Trade coverage names Uncle Waffles as part of Encore’s active roster in two separate pieces: an MBW report on the 2026 promotion of Ned Monahan to president and the hiring of former Warner/Elektra A&R head Jacob Fain, and a Music Week report on the same Fain hire. Both list her alongside Puerto Rican rapper Dei V as one of the label’s flagship developing artists. Neither piece states when she joined, on what terms, or whether the arrangement is a recording agreement, a distribution agreement, or something else. Encore’s own website returned “This site is private” when checked directly for this record and was not usable as a source.

The gap between “signed” and what the credit says

No press release, trade report or on-record statement locating an actual signing announcement for Uncle Waffles and Encore was found anywhere. She appears on Encore’s roster in later reporting about the company’s executive hires, not in a dedicated deal announcement of the kind that accompanied, for example, Nadia Nakai’s move to Ziiki Media. The only document that states the legal shape of the arrangement is the copyright line itself, and it does not say “signed.” It says “KO-SIGN PTY LTD., Distributed exclusively for the world by Encore Recordings.”

That is a distribution formula, not an ownership transfer. In the same way this desk has documented for Asake’s Giran Republic and EMPIRE, a copyright line naming a distributor alongside an artist-owned entity indicates the entity retains the phonographic right and grants a distribution or licence arrangement for the recording’s commercial exploitation, not a sale of the master. Nothing in any source checked states that Encore owns, co-owns, or holds a security interest in any Uncle Waffles master. Nothing states the length of the arrangement, its territory beyond “the world,” or whether it is exclusive to Encore or could run alongside other distributors release by release, the way Asake’s EMPIRE and gamma. credits have.

Whether KO-SIGN PTY LTD is Uncle Waffles’ own company could not be established from any source checked. No interview, registry filing or company document locating its shareholders was found. South Africa’s Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) has no public API available to this desk, and a manual filing search was outside the scope of what could be verified for this record. The pattern is consistent with comparable artist-owned imprints this site has documented elsewhere on the continent, among them Asake’s Giran Republic and Wizkid’s Starboy Entertainment, where an artist’s own company holds the phonographic credit and a distributor sits alongside it. Consistency with a pattern is not confirmation, and this record does not treat it as one.

What this means for artists

The Uncle Waffles catalogue is a clean illustration of a distinction that gets flattened constantly in coverage of African artists’ deals: a label relationship and a distribution relationship are not the same thing, and only one of them shows up reliably in public documents. Trade press profiles a company by its roster, which is accurate as far as it goes; Encore Recordings does work with Uncle Waffles, in some capacity, over a sustained period. But roster inclusion is not evidence of what was signed, for how long, or who ends up owning the recordings at the end of it. The copyright line is the only document in this entire record that states a legal relationship in specific terms, and it names a South African company most sources have not identified as belonging to anyone, distributed by an independent Los Angeles label that does not own it.

For an artist weighing a similar deal, the operative lesson is not that Encore’s arrangement is unusually opaque. It is that the phonographic credit, not the announcement, is the artifact worth checking, and worth insisting on controlling. Every Uncle Waffles release since March 2023 has named her own company first. Whichever distributor sits alongside it is, on this record, the part of the relationship that is actually replaceable.

Limits of this record. Catalogue credits were read directly from Apple’s own catalogue metadata via the iTunes Search and Lookup API for artist ID 1612263083, an official first-party source, not a secondary aggregator, covering eighteen releases from March 2022 to May 2026. Encore Recordings’ founding was confirmed via Variety (17 November 2021, byline Jem Aswad) and corroborated by Billboard Pro the same day. Its ownership structure and Orchard/Sony Music relationship rest on Joie Manda’s own quotes to Music Business Worldwide. Uncle Waffles’ presence on Encore’s roster is confirmed by two further Music Business Worldwide and Music Week reports on 2026 executive hires; neither names deal terms. No dedicated signing announcement, press release or on-record interview addressing the Uncle Waffles/Encore arrangement specifically was located anywhere, including on Encore’s own website, which was inaccessible (“This site is private”) when checked directly. KO-SIGN PTY LTD’s ownership, incorporation date, and relationship, if any, to Uncle Waffles personally could not be established; South Africa’s CIPC company registry has no public API available to this desk. No amount, term, territory beyond “the world,” or exclusivity clause was disclosed by any party for either the 2022 Kreativekornerr period or the KO-SIGN/Encore period that followed it.