The phonogram credit on the Ivorian rapper’s May 2026 album reads “℗ 2026 1X / SLIMAK, distributed by Sony Music Entertainment France SAS”. Trade coverage said he signed to Epic Records France. Epic appears in no rights metadata on any release in his catalogue, and the gap between those two statements is the story.
Himra has moved through three major-label systems in five years, and unusually for a Francophone African artist, every step of it is dated in public. Apple’s delivered rights metadata for his catalogue returns 103 releases, each carrying a phonogram line and a release date. Read in order, they are a timeline of who claimed to own his recordings and who claimed only to move them.
This desk pulled that catalogue on 8 October 2026, cross-checked a second streaming service, and resolved the parties against the French business register. The full deal record is here. What follows is what the documents support, and where they stop.
What changed hands in May 2026#
The owner position on new Himra masters, and the distributor named alongside it.
Until 14 November 2025 his releases read “℗ 2025 1X / Tieme Music, Distribution exclusive ADA France / Warner Music France”. By 2 April 2026 the credit had shrunk to “℗ 2026 1X” alone: no Tieme Music, no distributor. On 15 May 2026 the single “BARA BARA” added a second name, Slimak. On 29 May 2026 the 17-track album SORRY I’M BAD arrived reading “℗ 2026 1X / SLIMAK, distributed by Sony Music Entertainment France SAS”.
That string is identical on all six Apple storefronts checked: Côte d’Ivoire, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Senegal and Canada. Deezer, supplied through a separate pipeline, returns the label field for the same album as “1X / SLIMAK PRODUCTION”. Two platforms, one owner position.
No consideration is disclosed. No amount, advance, royalty rate, term or option appears in any document located. A figure of four million euros, rendered locally as 2.6 billion CFA francs, circulates on video channels and social accounts. It is confirmed by nobody: not Epic Records France, not Sony Music Entertainment, not the distributor named in the credit, not the artist’s representatives, and not the announcement itself. It is not a deal value and this publication does not print it as one.
The chain, dated#
From 2018 to 2020 the credits name the artist himself alongside Abidjan imprints: HVN, Mix Records, Machette Gang, N’djadan Prod.
From 16 July 2021 to 7 July 2023, ten releases read “℗ Def Jam Recordings Africa”, including the albums Ivoire Drill King, nine tracks, and IDK2, nineteen tracks. Deezer independently returns the label field on both of those albums as Universal Music Africa, the Abidjan-headquartered regional division. Their barcodes begin 602, and their recording identifiers carry the registrant prefix CIUM7.
On 24 November 2023 the 15-track album 1X appears under “℗ 2023 Tieme Music”. The owner position had left Def Jam. This matters because secondary accounts still place Himra at Def Jam Africa through 2024 and 2025. The rights metadata does not: the last Def Jam credit on a lead release is July 2023.
From 28 June 2024 the Tieme Music credits add the Warner distribution string. From May 2025 the owner position reads “℗ 2025 1X / Tieme Music”. The final release carrying it is DACHIBA KOUMGBA TCHAIBA : DALSHIM, 27 tracks, 14 November 2025.
Then two late changes that complicate the picture. On 29 September 2026 a single reads “℗ 2026 Abdul Rahim”, and on 4 October 2026 another reads “℗ 2026 HIMRA”. Neither names a distributor, and Deezer labels both “Independent”. Whether those sit inside or outside the May arrangement could not be established.
Distributes is not owns, and the credit says distributes#
This is the distinction the announcement cycle collapses every time, so it is worth being exact.
The credit uses the words “distributed by”. It does not use “under exclusive licence to”, and it does not use “licensed from”. On that wording, Sony Music Entertainment France SAS is evidenced as performing a distribution function. It is not evidenced as owning the masters, and it is not evidenced as holding a licensed interest in them. The parties in the owner position are 1X and Slimak.
That reading is not a technicality. This desk has shown the same pattern on Youssou N’Dour’s catalogue, where a relationship described as a signing was a distribution credit that stopped, after which the titles reappeared under the artist’s own company. A distribution credit can end without anything being sold.
What a phonogram line cannot do is also fixed. It names an owner position. It cannot separate a master assigned by the artist from one the company owned from the first session, nor from an artist-owned master released under a company’s name. It carries no term, no territory, no reversion. No French registration for “1X” could be found at all, so whether 1X is a company, an imprint or the artist’s own trading name remains open.
Epic Records is not in the metadata#
Trade coverage reported that Epic Records France, a Sony Music France frontline label, had announced signing the artist, citing more than 200 million Spotify streams, a first French certification in February 2026 for “Number One” with Minz, and a Zénith de Paris show. The post contains no amount, no term, no territory, no rights specification and no statement about master ownership. The document as served carries no publication date this desk could establish.
Epic Records appears in no phonogram credit, no Apple collection record and no Deezer label field located for any release in the catalogue. The two claims are not incompatible: a frontline label signing is routinely delivered to retail through a corporate distribution entity, and the Epic brand may simply never reach the metadata. But only one of the two is documented, and this publication reports both without resolving either into the other.
No official newsroom release could be found. Both sonymusic.fr and epicrecords.fr respond, but their on-site search is client-rendered and returned nothing even for a control artist already known to be on the label’s roster, so their silence on Himra is not evidence and is not treated as such.
Warner’s own credits disagree with each other#
The album JEUNE & RICHE, 17 tracks, 25 July 2024, reads “Distribution exclusive Warner Music France, Label Atlantic, ℗ 2024 Tieme Music”. Releases on either side of it in the same period read “Distribution exclusive ADA France / Warner Music France”.
Those describe materially different commercial relationships. ADA is Warner Music Group’s independent-label distribution arm, the service an outside label buys. Atlantic is a Warner frontline label, which signs. The delivered credits do not agree about which applied, and that release also carries a barcode outside the pattern of its neighbours. The contradiction is a finding. It is not resolved here.
Nor does ADA France resolve corporately. The French register returns no sound recording company under that name, and Warner Music France records trading names including WEA Music, Parlophone, Elektra France and Rec. 118, with ADA not among them. ADA France is a distribution brand in a credit, not an identified French legal entity, the same limit this desk hit on Stonebwoy’s 2024 ADA Worldwide arrangement.
Who the companies actually are#
Both resolvable parties in the owner position are French companies in the Paris suburbs, not Ivorian ones.
Tieme Music matches ODPMG, registration number 913075834, a sound recording and music publishing company at 188 rue Gerhard in Puteaux, incorporated 28 April 2022, active, with one recorded manager and no filed accounts. That is a strong match on activity code, incorporation date and trade description, not a proven identity: no document naming both ODPMG and Tieme Music could be located.
Slimak Production is registration number 879202216, at 18 boulevard Gallieni in Gennevilliers, incorporated 14 November 2019, with two recorded officers. Neither company publishes a shareholder register or accounts, so the beneficial ownership of either could not be determined.
No Ivorian company appears in the owner position on any release from 2021 onwards. The repertoire is Ivorian and the corporate structure is French.
What is not established#
Publishing, entirely. Nothing located names the publisher or administrator of the underlying compositions for any period, in Côte d’Ivoire, France or elsewhere. A recording arrangement says nothing about that chain in either direction.
Back catalogue, also. The Def Jam-era and Tieme Music-era credits were unchanged as at 8 October 2026, which indicates those masters did not travel with the artist. But a retail credit is not a title deed, and ownership of the earlier recordings is not proven.
And the mechanism. A credit change is consistent with assignment, with a term expiring unrenewed, with a new agreement covering only new masters, or with a reorganisation among the named parties. Which one happened is undocumented.
What this means for artists#
The word next to the company name is the whole deal. “Distributed by” and “under exclusive licence to” look similar in a credit and are different legal positions. Learn which one your releases carry, because it determines who can stop you leaving.
Your credit line is a public dated record, so use it. Four owner positions in five years are all legible for free, by anyone, including anyone you negotiate with next. Note the date your own credit changes. That is the date a third party can prove something moved.
A signing announcement is not a rights position. The label named in the press is not always the company named in the metadata. Before you repeat your own announcement, check what your distributor actually filed to retail under your name.
Watch which arm of a major you are contracting with. An independent distribution service and a frontline label are different businesses with different economics, and on this catalogue the credits could not keep them straight. Ask which entity signs, and get the answer in the agreement rather than in the artwork.
Keeping the owner position is the asset. Through every major-label era here, a name the artist is connected to stayed in the phonogram line. By October 2026 two singles carried his own. That is the position worth protecting, and it is worth more than the headline figure nobody will confirm.
