The Orchard buys Brazil's OniMusic, betting on $142M gospel music market

What's the deal? The OrchardDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Sony Music's distribution arm, has acquired OniMusicDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Brazilian Christian music label, distributor, and digital platform home to more than 120 artists. OniMusic was founded in 2004 by Nelson and Christie Tristão in Belo Horizonte, and its roster spans worship, contemporary Christian, and gospel genres. The company also administers more than 250,000 musical works through its publishing division.

The Orchard called the deal "a landmark expansion into the Latin American gospel market," which it described as one of the fastest-growing segments in global music.

Why now? Brazil's gospel music market is booming. According to The Orchard, the genre saw average annual listener growth of 44% on Spotify between 2015 and 2020 and now accounts for roughly 20% of the country's total music revenue.

Brazil is the world's eighth-largest recorded music market, per IFPI data published in March 2026. The country's recorded music trade revenues grew 14.1% year-on-year to $708M in 2025, with streaming driving the vast majority of that figure. The 20% share cited by The Orchard would imply a Brazilian gospel market worth approximately $142M at trade value.

What could go wrong? OniMusic built its reputation on artist-first relationships rooted in faith and community — values that can be tricky to preserve inside a major-label corporate structure. Nelson Tristão acknowledged as much, saying the partnership "allows us to stay true to that identity while also taking an important step forward in our growth."

Whether The Orchard can scale the business without alienating OniMusic's artist base and audience will be a key test.

The signal: Both The Orchard and OniMusic are classified as early-growth companies on Dealroom, suggesting Sony sees this acquisition as a way to accelerate two scaling businesses simultaneously rather than absorb a mature asset. With Brazil's recorded music revenues growing 14.1% year-on-year and gospel commanding a reported fifth of that market, the deal positions Sony's distribution infrastructure behind a segment where audience growth has consistently outpaced the broader industry.

Read more: musicbusinessworldwide.com