!K7 Music GmbH
Berlin label group (!K7 Records, Strut, DJ-Kicks) founded by the late Horst Weidenmüller, acquired by Create Music Group in 2025.
- Based in
- Berlin, Germany
- Founded
- Founded in Berlin, variously dated 1984 or 1985 across sources, by Horst Weidenmüller, originally as a music-video production company before launching its !K7 Records label operation in 1996. Strut Records, a separately founded UK Afrobeat and Italo-disco label, was acquired by Weidenmüller and folded into the !K7 group in 2008.
- Founder
- Horst Weidenmüller (died February 2025, aged 60).
- Website
- k7.com
!K7 Music GmbH is a Berlin label group founded by Horst Weidenmüller in the mid-1980s, originally as a music-video production company before launching its !K7 Records label operation in 1996. The group also runs the long-running DJ-Kicks mix series and, since a 2008 acquisition, the UK label Strut Records, which covers Afrobeat and Italo-disco catalogue and new signings.
Weidenmüller died in February 2025. Days later, Create Music Group announced what trade press reported as an acquisition of !K7; !K7’s own CEO, Tom Nieuweboer, described the same transaction as a “partnership” in the announcement, and no source has disclosed a share percentage or deal value.
Strut released Orchestra Baobab’s Made In Senegal on 23 October 2026, the band’s first new studio album in nine years, jointly credited to Strut and the Senegal-facing Madoky Music. That credit line names neither World Circuit nor BMG, which held the band’s catalogue from 1982 to 2017.