Damilola “Dapper” Akinwunmi, founder of the Lagos-based Dapper Group, has denied allegations of financial impropriety made by three former artists and invited them to nominate an independent firm to audit the company’s accounts and contracts.
The response, posted on X on Saturday, August 16, 2026, followed public accusations by T.I Blaze, Seyi Vibez and Shallipopi over the preceding two days, covering royalty accounting, catalogue ownership and the terms on which the artists were signed.
What Dapper said
Akinwunmi said he had nothing to hide and rejected the accusations of contractual violation and financial misconduct. He said an audit of the company had already been carried out by a reputable firm, and that he was willing to have the accounts and the contracts reviewed again by an independent auditor of the artists’ choosing. Reports of the posts said he named KPMG, PwC and Deloitte among the firms he would accept, alongside leading Nigerian law firms.
He also said that records relating to the disputes were already with the relevant authorities, and that the proper process should be allowed to determine the facts. Addressing the artists directly, he said they had made their own decisions to leave the company.
Shallipopi escalates
The response did not close the matter. Shallipopi, who left Dapper Music and Dvpper Digital in December 2024, has continued to post, saying he had given a statement to Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and calling for the dispute to be settled at the commission or in court.
His specific claims are that he signed a management agreement with Dapper in 2023 and nothing more, that his signature was subsequently placed on a 10-year distribution contract he did not agree to, and that his signature was also placed on an agreement with Virgin Music Group. He has said he was already distributing his music through DistroKid at the time. He puts the sum withheld from him at more than one million US dollars, covering royalties from 46 songs, including his breakout single “E Don Cast”.
None of these claims has been independently established. No court has ruled on any of them, and the EFCC has not publicly confirmed that it has opened a case. Dapper Music has denied the allegations in general terms and has not addressed the forgery claim point by point in public.
Where the dispute stands
Four former Dapper artists have now made public complaints across two years. Seyi Vibez left in September 2024. Shallipopi and Muyeez both left that December, Muyeez alleging he had received no royalties from three EPs, an account the company disputed at the time, saying his father had signed the agreement in the presence of witnesses. T.I Blaze went public on August 14, 2026, saying his contract had expired, that he had spent about seven months trying to resolve matters privately, and that his catalogue had still not been released to him.
The documents that would settle most of it exist and none of them are public: the signed agreements, the distribution statements, the Virgin Music Group agreement, and the audit Akinwunmi says has already been done.
Afrobeats Wire is not reporting the personal allegations that have circulated alongside the financial ones, including claims about health, relationships and spiritual practice involving people who are not party to any of these contracts. They cannot be verified and they do not bear on how the money moved.
Read next: the four contract structures at the centre of the dispute, in One Artist Is a Dispute, Four Is a Pattern, and what the fallout is teaching a generation of artists, in The Dapper Fallout Is Teaching Nigerian Artists Not to Sign Anything.
