Mohbad Signed to Marlian Records in 2019. His Own Catalogue Shows Three Different Rights Holders, and the Royalty Dispute Is Still Before Nigeria’s Federal High Court.

On 25 October 2022, Mohbad’s legal team wrote to Naira Marley’s Marlian Music to end his contract, telling the label directly: “You have failed to pay all royalties due our client from all his intellectual property works monetized, released and utilised by you from 2019 till date.” Three years, a death and a coroner’s inquest later, nobody has publicly resolved that claim. Under oath in March 2025, Mohbad’s lawyer said it is now a live case before Nigeria’s Federal High Court.

A 2019 signing, and a termination letter with the numbers left out

Mohbad, born Ilerioluwa Oladimeji Aloba, signed to Marlian Records in 2019, the label Naira Marley (Azeez Fashola) founded and ran out of Lagos. His debut EP, Light, followed in December 2020 with Naira Marley credited as executive producer. The relationship broke down publicly in October 2022. On 5 October, Mohbad accused Naira Marley of orchestrating an assault against him. Twenty days later, his lawyers issued a formal termination, stating that Marlian Music had “failed to pay any advances as mutually agreed by both parties since 2019 till date” alongside the unpaid-royalties claim above. Neither figure, the advances owed or the royalties owed, was put in writing anywhere public. No reply from Marlian Music to the letter itself has ever surfaced.

Mohbad launched his own imprint, Imolenization, weeks later, in November 2022. Its only release under his ownership was the EP Blessed, out 30 June 2023.

What his family said after he died

Mohbad died on 12 September 2023, aged 27. Four days later, his family posted a statement saying that before his death he had been in court to recover “the majority of his songs and unpaid royalties” they said were wrongfully held by Marlian Music, and that they intended to continue the fight so his infant son, Liam, would benefit from the catalogue. No case name, docket number or filing has been made public to confirm what court that refers to or what stage it had reached.

The House of Representatives got involved, then the record goes quiet

On 26 September 2023, Nigeria’s House of Representatives passed a resolution on the matter, and by 27 October its Committees on Justice, Youth and Legislative Compliance had issued a written summons inviting Naira Marley and Mohbad’s legal team to “an interactive meeting session as regards a referral received being a resolution of the House of Representatives… with respect to the circumstances surrounding the royalties and other benefits of Mohbad.” That invitation is the clearest official document in the entire dispute. No public record of the committee issuing findings, a report or a resolution afterward has turned up in any source checked for this piece.

Under oath, two accounts of the same relationship

The dispute resurfaced formally at a coroner’s inquest into Mohbad’s death, not at a royalties tribunal. On 21 March 2025, Naira Marley testified virtually before Magistrate Adedayo Shotobi in Ikorodu that he had signed Mohbad for four albums that were never completed because of disagreements with his manager, and stated flatly that there were no disputes between them. Mohbad’s lawyer, Oluwasanmi Falade, testified next and directly contradicted him, saying he had written to Marlian Music “several times” over unpaid royalties and never received a response, and that the matter “has since become a subject of litigation before the Federal High Court.” That is sworn testimony reported from the hearing, not a filing this desk has independently pulled from the court itself, and it is the most recent on-record confirmation that the royalty question remains open two and a half years after Mohbad died.

The inquest is a separate proceeding from the criminal case around his death. A Lagos magistrate’s court cleared Naira Marley, promoter Sam Larry and Owodunni Ibrahim (“Primeboy”) of criminal responsibility for Mohbad’s death on 25 February 2025, adopting the Directorate of Public Prosecution’s finding that the trio had no case to answer on that specific charge. That ruling addressed the death, not the money. It has no bearing on the royalty dispute, and nothing in it constitutes a finding on who holds Mohbad’s masters.

The catalogue itself carries three different rights holders

Checked directly against the release metadata on Apple Music, Mohbad’s discography does not show one consistent owner even within the Marlian-signing years. Light, released 18 December 2020, carries the phonogram credit “℗ 2020 Marlian Music.” But KPK (Ko Por Ke), his song with Rexxie released the same month, carries a different credit entirely: “℗ 2020 The HitxLab NG / Dvpper Music,” an independent Lagos distributor with no connection to Marlian named anywhere in the credit. Two releases from the same artist, in the same signing period, in the same month, name two different companies as rights holder.

His post-Marlian EP Blessed, released 30 June 2023, carries “℗ 2023 Imolenization, with exclusive license to ONErpm,” the New York-headquartered distributor. A posthumous reissue of the single Peace, dated 6 November 2023 on Apple Music, carries no company at all: just “℗ 2023 Mohbad.” Four releases, three different credit structures, and none of them settle who holds the pre-2022 Marlian-era catalogue that his family and lawyer say is the actual subject of the dispute.

What is established, and what is not

Established, from documents read directly for this piece: the 2019 signing, the October 2022 termination and its exact unpaid-royalties and unpaid-advances language, the family’s September 2023 statement, the House of Representatives’ own written summons, the March 2025 inquest testimony from both Naira Marley and Falade including the Federal High Court reference, the February 2025 criminal clearance, and the phonogram credits on four specific releases as they stand today.

Not established, from any source checked: who currently holds the master rights to Mohbad’s Marlian-era catalogue; any settlement, judgment or transfer document; a case number or filing for the Federal High Court matter Falade referenced under oath; any on-record statement from Marlian Music itself addressing the royalty claims, as opposed to Naira Marley’s personal denial that a dispute exists; and what has happened to Imolenization, the imprint Mohbad founded, or who if anyone controls it since his death. DSP phonogram credits are metadata maintained by distributors, not court filings, and they can lag behind real ownership changes; the KPK credit naming a different distributor than Light shows the Marlian-era catalogue was not released through one uniform channel, not that Marlian Music holds no claim on any of it.

What this means for artists

Mohbad’s catalogue shows what happens when a young artist’s early deals are never fully documented in public and the artist is not alive to keep pushing for an answer. A termination letter, a family’s public statement, a parliamentary summons and sworn courtroom testimony all say the same thing, that money was owed and never accounted for, without any of them producing the one document that would actually settle it: a royalty statement, a rights registry entry, or a court judgment naming who owns what.

For any artist signing a label deal, particularly the kind of early, low-leverage deal most new acts sign, the practical lesson is not to trust that a public dispute will eventually resolve itself into clarity. It usually does not. It is to insist on an audit clause and a copyright registration schedule at signing, so that if the relationship ends, there is a paper trail independent of either side’s public statements, and so a dispute like this one is not still open at a coroner’s inquest three years after the artist meant to fight it in court is no longer alive to do so.