Originally a British label with South African roots, Jive Records was founded in 1977 by Clive Calder in London after acquiring British citizenship. Its original parent company, Zomba, was named after the capitol of Malawi. One of Jive's earliest successes was Whodini, its first US signing and first major success there.

Originally distributed in the US by Arista, it struck a lucrative deal with RCA records in 1986, which lasted until 1991, when it swtiched to BMG Distribution proper, the parent of RCA since 1987. Years later, in 2002, Jive was in flux, considering worldwide distribution with EMI. In order to combat this, BMG purchased the label for US$2 billion, making it the largest acquisition to date of a major-distributed independent label after A&M, Geffen, Island, and Virgin were acquired over the years by the major labels in gigantic deals. In a restructuring after the acquisition, the Zomba name came to prominence as it became a full label group under the BMG umbrella. Other BMG labels were placed under Zomba’s aegis as well. The Zomba Label Group was relatively unscathed when BMG merged with Sony Music in 2004, forming Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Barry Weiss ran the label’s US operations since the beginning, and continues to run the Zomba Label Group in the present day.

Since 2004, Jive is a part of the Zomba Label Group, a unit of Sony BMG Music Entertainment from 2004 until 2008, and Sony Music Entertainment since.

Label codes:
LC 7925: (BMG distribution—74321: international catalog-number prefix, 01241: North American catalog-number prefix)
LC 5661 / LC 05661 (Rough Trade Distribution, RTD cat#s)