Soundway Records Ltd

Soundway Records is a London-based independent label founded in 2002 by English DJ and producer Miles Cleret, after a record-buying trip to Ghana left him holding a catalogue no UK label would release. Rather than a single deal, the label’s identity is a long run of licensing agreements with West and East African rights holders: the “Special” reissue series put out Nigeria Special (2007), Ghana Special (2009) and Kenya Special (2013), alongside catalogues from Panama, Colombia, Brazil, Thailand and the French Caribbean. From 2012 the label added contemporary signings, including Ibibio Sound Machine, Batida and Lord Echo.

Soundway is not independent in the ownership sense. Third Side Music Inc., the Montreal and Los Angeles-based publisher, took a controlling stake (more than 50%, Companies House records it as under 75%) in December 2021, folding Soundway into its push into master rights after three years of sync-licensing work together. Founder Miles Cleret is no longer a listed director; the company’s current directors are Third Side Music principals Patrick Curley and Jeff Waye, alongside Paula Duran Ardila in London. Distribution runs through IDOL, which signed the label in June 2022.

The commercial relevance to this directory sits in the licensing, not the address: a UK-incorporated company whose catalogue and revenue depend on decades of agreements with Ghanaian and Nigerian rights holders is the kind of arrangement the directory tracks even when the company itself sits outside Africa.