Deal sheet
- Status
- Lapsed
- Type
- Joint Venture
- Parties
- Blaqboy Music Corporation (Pty) Ltd, Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd
- Amount
- Not disclosed Not disclosed
- Rights covered
- Distribution and licensing, not disclosed ownership, and not a stable single arrangement. Apple's own catalogue metadata for DJ Maphorisa (Themba Sonnyboy Sekowe) shows three different phonogram credit formulas used at three different points, and this record treats them as three separate findings rather than one continuous deal.
First, a joint venture credit. From Midnight Starring (8 September 2017, reissued 10 November 2017) through Umdali (28 June 2024), a cluster of releases carries the joint phonogram line "Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd/BLAQ BOY MUSIC CORPORATION (PTY) LTD" (later styled "Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd / Blaq Boy Music Corporation (Pty) Ltd"). It appears on Midnight Starring, the Blaqboy Music Presents Gqom Wave compilation (17 November 2017), iWalk Ye Phara (29 June 2018), More Than That (3 August 2018), then not again until Bula Nthweo (15 December 2023), its radio edit (12 April 2024) and Umdali (28 June 2024). No release in this catalogue has carried that joint credit since 28 June 2024, over two years before this record was compiled.
Second, a continuous label-and-distribution credit. "New Money Gang Records" (styled variously New Money Gang Records, New Money Gang Music, or New Money Gang) appears as sole phonogram holder as early as Belinda (Remix) on 5 August 2015, two years before the Blaqboy/Sony joint credit begins and before Blaqboy Music Corporation's own founding year of 2017 as stated in this site's directory. From Scorpion Kings (5 July 2019) onward, the formula standardises to "New Money Gang Records, exclusively distributed under Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd," and that exact formula, the same structure this site has already documented for Kabza De Small's Piano Hub, remains current through MOKWEPA (28 August 2026), the most recent release checked. A cluster of 2023-2025 hits, including Mnike (28 April 2023) and its remixes, Government (26 April 2024), Manzi Nte (31 May 2024), Yebo Lapho (Gogo) (3 July 2024), Biri Marung (8 November 2024), South Gidi (24 October 2025), Asambe Baby and Sthombe Esihle (21 November 2025), invert the wording to "Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd, under exclusive licence from New Money Gang Records," naming Sony as the credited phonogram holder and New Money Gang as licensor. No source explains why the two formulas alternate release to release.
Third, a separate credit tied to Kabza De Small releases on which Maphorisa also appears, running through Piano Hub (Pty) Ltd, which this site has already documented in a standalone record (afw_deal_key: piano-hub-sony-music-entertainment-africa-2019). Two Maphorisa-linked releases, Wishi Wishi (18 October 2024) and its edit (27 November 2024), invert to "Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd under exclusive license from Piano Hub (Pty) Ltd," matching the same inversion already flagged as unexplained in that record.
No source located states that Sony holds equity, a security interest, or co-ownership in any of these masters under any of the three formulas. No source states what happened to the Blaqboy Music Corporation joint venture after June 2024, whether it was formally wound down, absorbed into New Money Gang Records, or simply stopped being used on new releases while remaining in force for older ones.
- Territory
- South Africa, on the face of the credit line only. Every phonogram line in this catalogue that names Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd, whether the Blaqboy joint-venture formula, the New Money Gang distribution formula, or the licence-inversion formula, opens with the words "South Africa" before the company name. Neither DJ Maphorisa, Blaqboy Music Corporation, New Money Gang Records nor Sony has stated a contractual territory in any source located. This record does not extend the finding to "worldwide" the way this site's Piano Hub record does, because that record relied on additional releases showing the same formula outside South Africa; no equivalent evidence was located for this catalogue during this check.
- Announced
- 2017-11-10
- Primary document
- Rights registry
- Sources
- Apple catalogue lookup for DJ Maphorisa (Apple artist ID 956074379), South African storefront, read 13 September 2026, returning phonogram credit lines and release dates for 172 releases from January 2015 through September 2026. · zkhiphani.co.za trade report, 10 November 2017, announcing the Blaqboy Music and Sony Music Entertainment Africa joint release of the Gqom Wave compilation, dated for release 17 November 2017, naming no consideration and carrying no attributed quotes · Apple Music album page for Midnight Starring (reissue), read 12 September 2026, phonogram line reads Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd/BLAQ BOY MUSIC CORPORATION (PTY) LTD, the earliest joint credit found · Apple Music album page for Blaqboy Music Presents Gqom Wave, read 12 September 2026, released 17 November 2017, same joint Sony/Blaqboy phonogram line, the compilation named in the zkhiphani report · Apple Music album page for Umdali, read 12 September 2026, released 28 June 2024, the last release found carrying the joint Sony/Blaqboy Music Corporation phonogram credit · Apple Music album page for Belinda (Remix), read 12 September 2026, released 5 August 2015, phonogram line reads New Money Gang Records, the earliest use of that credit found, predating both Blaqboy Music Corporation's stated 2017 founding and Piano Hub's stated 2019 founding · Apple Music album page for Scorpion Kings, read 12 September 2026, released 5 July 2019, first release carrying the standardised formula New Money Gang Records, exclusively distributed under Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd · MusicBrainz label search API, queried 12 September 2026, returning zero label entities for Blaqboy · MusicBrainz label search API, queried 12 September 2026, returning one label entity, MBID 8a061761-09d6-460e-a070-f685c5b8ebc6, for New Money Gang · This site's own record on Piano Hub (Pty) Ltd and Sony Music Entertainment Africa, which lists New Money Gang Records as an alias of Piano Hub, a claim this record's earliest New Money Gang credit (5 August 2015) contradicts on the timeline alone
Read this before citing: THIS RECORD DOES NOT ESTABLISH A SINGLE DEAL. It establishes a phonogram credit history, spanning January 2015 to September 2026, that runs through three differently named vehicles, Blaqboy Music Corporation, New Money Gang Records and (on shared Kabza De Small releases) Piano Hub, with Sony Music Entertainment Africa named on all three at different points. Readers should not treat this as evidence of one continuous contract.
THE BLAQBOY/SONY JOINT VENTURE APPEARS LAPSED. The only trade-press description of a deal here is a 10 November 2017 article reporting that DJ Maphorisa's Blaqboy Music and Sony Music Entertainment Africa would jointly release the Gqom Wave compilation, framed as a joint venture. That framing matches this site's own directory record for Blaqboy Music Corporation (Pty) Ltd, which describes an active joint venture. But the phonogram evidence shows the joint credit was last used on 28 June 2024, over two years before this record was compiled, and no source explains whether the venture ended, was restructured, or is simply dormant on new releases. This site's directory record for Blaqboy Music Corporation should be revisited in light of that gap.
NEW MONEY GANG RECORDS PREDATES BOTH BLAQBOY MUSIC CORPORATION AND THE STATED SONY RELATIONSHIP. The earliest New Money Gang Records credit found, 5 August 2015, is two years before Blaqboy Music Corporation's stated 2017 founding and four years before Piano Hub's stated 2019 founding. This directly contradicts this site's own Piano Hub record (afw_deal_key: piano-hub-sony-music-entertainment-africa-2019), which lists "New Money Gang Records" as an alias of Piano Hub (Pty) Ltd. A label credited on record four years before the company it is allegedly an alias of existed cannot be that company's alias under that name for the full period. This is flagged here for the corrections desk rather than resolved, since this record's brief does not extend to editing another company's directory entry.
MUSICBRAINZ HAS NO LABEL ENTITY FOR BLAQBOY. A MusicBrainz label search for "Blaqboy" returned zero results (checked 12 September 2026). A MusicBrainz label search for "New Money Gang" returned one match, a registered label entity (MBID 8a061761-09d6-460e-a070-f685c5b8ebc6). This desk does not read a rights position into a registry gap, since MusicBrainz coverage of African independent labels is uneven, but it is a second data point suggesting New Money Gang Records has firmer standing as a distinct label than Blaqboy Music Corporation does outside Apple's own metadata.
OWNERSHIP OF NEITHER VEHICLE IS ESTABLISHED. Whether Blaqboy Music Corporation (Pty) Ltd or New Money Gang Records is wholly owned by DJ Maphorisa personally, jointly with Kabza De Small in the case of New Money Gang, or held some other way, could not be established. South Africa's CIPC company registry has no public API available to this desk. This site's own directory record for Blaqboy Music Corporation already notes no separate CIPC filing was located to confirm shareholding.
SOURCES THAT COULD NOT BE FETCHED. A 2015-dated Daily Sun article, understood from secondary references to carry founding detail on Maphorisa's early label activity, returned HTTP 404 and was not used. A News24 report on the same period returned an HTTP 403 from Cloudflare to both an automated fetch and a direct browser-style request and was not used. A Facebook post referencing the period returned only page chrome, no article text, and was not used. web.archive.org could not be reached by the tools available this session. No claim in this record rests on any of those four sources.
A PHONOGRAM LINE IS NOT A CONTRACT. As with this site's other credit-line-based records, a phonogram credit records who claims copyright in a specific recording as delivered to a store. It does not by itself establish whether masters were assigned, licensed, or left with the artist, and this record does not resolve that question for any of the three vehicles described above.
Apple’s own catalogue metadata for DJ Maphorisa shows a joint venture that Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd and the producer’s Blaqboy Music Corporation (Pty) Ltd announced with a compilation album in 2017 has not appeared on a new release in more than two years, while a differently named label, New Money Gang Records, has quietly carried the Sony distribution credit on his records since before the joint venture existed and continues to do so through his newest single.
None of this was announced as a change. It shows up only in the ℗ line, the phonogram copyright credit that every streaming platform requires on every release, and it took a full pull of DJ Maphorisa’s 172-release Apple Music catalogue, read directly from Apple’s own lookup API rather than from any press account, to see the shape of it.
What the trade press actually reported, in 2017
The only news report located on the Blaqboy Music and Sony arrangement is a single trade piece, published 10 November 2017, announcing that Themba Sonnyboy Sekowe, known as DJ Maphorisa, had struck a joint venture with Sony Music Entertainment Africa and would mark it with Blaqboy Music Presents Gqom Wave, a compilation due out a week later on 17 November. The report described the project as a vehicle for new talent, paired established Gqom names with newer producers, and named Midnight Starring, featuring DJ Tira, Busiswa and Moonchild Sanelly, as his Sony debut single. It did not name a contract term, an ownership split, an advance or a royalty rate, and no party has stated any of those figures in any source checked since.
What the credit lines actually show
Apple’s copyright field on Midnight Starring, first released 8 September 2017 and reissued 10 November 2017, reads “Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd/BLAQ BOY MUSIC CORPORATION (PTY) LTD.” The same joint line appears on Gqom Wave itself, released as announced on 17 November 2017. It then appears twice more, on iWalk Ye Phara in June 2018 and More Than That in August 2018, before falling silent on new Maphorisa solo releases for more than five years.
It reappears on three tracks between December 2023 and June 2024: Bula Nthweo and its radio edit, and a single called Umdali, released 28 June 2024. That is the last time the joint Sony/Blaqboy Music Corporation credit shows up anywhere in the 172-release catalogue this desk pulled. Every DJ Maphorisa release checked since then, including collaborations dated into September 2026, carries a different credit.
The label that was there before the joint venture, and is still there now
The credit that replaced it is New Money Gang Records, and the timeline is the part the 2017 announcement does not account for. Apple’s metadata shows New Money Gang Records as the sole phonogram holder on Belinda (Remix), featuring AKA, C4 Pedro and Davido, released 5 August 2015, two years before Blaqboy Music Corporation’s own founding year and two years before Sony entered the picture in any source checked. A second early appearance, styled New Money Gang Music, sits on Soweto Baby, featuring DJ Buckz and Wizkid, in January 2016.
New Money Gang Records goes quiet on Maphorisa’s own releases through the Blaqboy years, then resurfaces as the dominant credit from Scorpion Kings, the July 2019 collaborative album with Kabza De Small, onward. From that point the formula standardises: “New Money Gang Records, exclusively distributed under Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd.” That exact structure, sole label credit paired with exclusive Sony distribution, is the same one this desk has already documented for Kabza De Small’s own label, Piano Hub (Pty) Ltd. It appears on dozens of releases through 2026, most recently on MOKWEPA, released 28 August 2026.
On a cluster of the biggest records in that run, the wording flips. Mnike, released 28 April 2023 and one of the defining amapiano records of that year, carries “Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd, under exclusive licence from New Money Gang Records,” naming Sony as the credited phonogram holder and New Money Gang as licensor rather than the other way round. The same inversion appears on Government (April 2024), Manzi Nte (May 2024), the Mnike remix (June 2024), Yebo Lapho Gogo (July 2024), Biri Marung (November 2024), and on three 2025 releases, South Gidi, Asambe Baby and Sthombe Esihle. No source explains why some releases run the credit one way and others run it the other way, and this record does not resolve it.
Two releases tied to Maphorisa but credited through the Kabza De Small side of the operation, Wishi Wishi in October 2024 and its edit in November, carry a third variant: “Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd under exclusive license from Piano Hub (Pty) Ltd.” That matches an inversion this desk’s Piano Hub record already flagged as unexplained on the same two release dates.
A contradiction in this site’s own records
This site’s directory entry for Piano Hub (Pty) Ltd currently lists New Money Gang Records as an alias of that company. The catalogue evidence gathered for this record contradicts that. New Money Gang Records was already carrying a phonogram credit in August 2015, four years before Piano Hub’s own stated 2019 founding. A label cannot be the alias of a company that did not yet exist. This record flags the discrepancy for correction rather than resolving it, since fixing another company’s directory entry sits outside this record’s brief; the two names most plausibly describe two separate imprints that have both, at different times, carried the same Sony distribution formula on releases connected to the Scorpion Kings duo of Kabza De Small and DJ Maphorisa.
A parallel check of MusicBrainz, the open rights registry, returned zero label entities for “Blaqboy” and one confirmed entity for “New Money Gang,” reinforcing that the two names have not had equal standing in rights databases even while both have appeared on Sony-distributed Maphorisa records.
What this means for artists
The lesson here is not really about DJ Maphorisa, who by every account remains a working, prolific artist with a direct hand in both labels named on his own records. It is about what a joint venture announcement is worth on its own. Blaqboy Music Corporation and Sony Music Entertainment Africa held a press-announced joint venture in 2017, and Apple’s own credit lines confirm the joint venture was real, in the sense that Sony’s name appeared on the recordings exactly as announced, for the releases where it did. But the same evidence shows that credit stopped appearing on new work after June 2024, with no announcement of a change, no statement of what the joint venture’s current status is, and no public record of what, if anything, replaced it beyond the label’s own private business decisions.
For artists weighing a joint venture, a distribution deal or a licence with a major, the practical takeaway is that a signing announcement describes a moment, not a permanent state. The only durable record of whether a company relationship is still active is the credit line on each new release, checked release by release, not the press cycle around the deal that started it. An artist, a manager or a smaller label negotiating a similar arrangement should ask now, in the contract, what happens to the credit line if the relationship changes, rather than trusting that a joint venture announced with fanfare in one year will still describe the arrangement carrying the artist’s work seven years later.
It is also a reminder that label names attached to an artist’s catalogue are not always what they first appear. Two credits, New Money Gang Records and Piano Hub, both distributed by the same Sony entity, both connected to the same duo of collaborators, have been treated as interchangeable in at least one place on the public record when the dates say they should not be. Getting that kind of detail right matters more, not less, the more successful the catalogue attached to it becomes.
