Polygram Music
Defunct South African PolyGram/Gallo Africa joint venture (1995-1998), later absorbed into Universal Music Group.
- Based in
- South Africa
- Founded
- 1995
PolyGram South Africa was a record label and distribution operation formed in 1995 out of Teal Trutone Music, itself a 1980s consolidation of Gallo Record Company’s Trutone and Teal labels. The new entity was a joint venture two-thirds owned by Dutch major PolyGram N.V. and one-third by South African independent Gallo Africa, distributing international licensed catalogue (Vertigo, Polydor, Island, Chrysalis, A&M among others) alongside local repertoire in the South African market.
The company was short-lived. In 1998, parent PolyGram N.V. was bought by Seagram and merged into what became Universal Music Group, dissolving PolyGram South Africa as a distinct entity. Its catalogue and operations passed into what is now Universal Music South Africa, while Gallo Africa continued as an independent South African company.
The record is included here as a historical entry: a real, three-year-old joint venture between a major and a South African independent, now defunct rather than erased, and a useful marker of how PolyGram’s African footprint folded into Universal’s.