This is the company created in March 1996 as the parent of the renamed Rising Tide label and its roster of urban, country and Latin acts. When the MCA Records Inc. operations were rebranded as Universal in late December 1996, Universal Records Inc became a much larger operation absorbing most of the operations of MCA. The earlier company continued to exist in parallel until 2000. The late 1996 company can be identified by the newly designed simple black and white logo with the word "Universal' on a flat plane as still used in 2023. Any release with that logo is almost certainly 1997 or later.

For the earlier unrelated company please use Universal Records Inc. (3)

For company use only. For the label, use or .

For Philippines record company, mostly related to Universal Records (7), please use Universal Records Inc. (2).