Sire Records
Warner-owned American label, founded in 1966, credited alongside Nigeria's KeyQaad on Omah Lay's recordings since 2020.
- Based in
- New York, United States
- Founded
- 1966
- Founder
- Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer
- Website
- sirerecords.com
Sire Records, founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer, is an American record label now owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Records; it was formerly known as Sire Records Company. It became a successful independent label in the mid-1970s before returning to major-label distribution in 1977 under a new deal with Warner Bros. Records. The following year, Warner Bros. and Sire began negotiations for Warner Bros. to purchase Sire outright, making it one of the company’s subsidiary labels.
Sire is the imprint credited alongside Nigerian label KeyQaad on Nigerian singer Omah Lay’s recordings from 2020 onward. Some of the earliest KeyQaad-credited catalogue entries for his music, from January 2020, state the relationship as KeyQaad material released “under exclusive license to Sire Records”. Neither Sire, Warner nor KeyQaad has published a joint statement describing the deal. His most recent KeyQaad-credited releases, in April and May 2026, carry a phonogram line naming Warner Records Inc. directly rather than the Sire imprint, a change from the credit used on his earlier releases.
