Deal sheet
- Status
- Contested. The credit line ran unbroken from 14 October 2022 to 12 September 2025 and has not appeared on a Qing Madi release since. From 27 August 2025 her releases carry other phonogram owners, including one naming the artist herself and, from April 2026, KFMD with MAD Solutions LLC and MAD Capital Partners. Both JTON and KFMD issued statements on 5 June 2026 describing a ruling delivered on 25 May 2026 by the Hon Justice T. B. Sunmonu of the High Court of Lagos State in Suit No. LD/5242CMW/2025, and describing it in incompatible terms. No court document has been obtained and neither characterisation is adopted here.
- Type
- Licensing
- Parties
- JTON Entertainment Limited, Bu Vision LLC, Columbia Records, KFMD
- Amount
- Not disclosed, and no figure is asserted here. A phonogram credit records who owns and who licenses a recording; it never records consideration, so no advance, royalty rate, minimum guarantee or lump sum for the JTON to Bu Vision licence has been established. No party has published the agreement. The only monetary figures in circulation come from the parties' 2026 dispute rather than from the licence: reporting of the Lagos proceedings refers to a claim in the region of two million United States dollars, and the artist referred publicly to a two-million-dollar case. Neither figure has been checked against a court document by this desk and neither is a deal value.
- Rights covered
- Sound recording copyright in Qing Madi's 2022 to 2025 catalogue, credited to JTON Music, with an exclusive licence granted to Bu Vision LLC. Fifteen Apple Music collections carry the credit: See Finish (14 October 2022), Why (17 March 2023), Why (24 May 2023), Ole with BNXN (21 July 2023), Journey (3 November 2023), the debut EP Qing Madi (17 November 2023), Apple Music Home Session (9 February 2024), American Love (14 February 2024), Vision (Remix) with Chloe (3 May 2024), Qing Madi (Deluxe) (5 July 2024), Favorite Psycho A COLORS SHOW (6 January 2025), the album I am the Blueprint (31 January 2025), Wrecking Ball (7 March 2025), EGO with VALORANT Music (2 June 2025) and Scumbag (12 September 2025). No transfer of copyright to any major label is stated or evidenced. Publishing is a separate chain and nothing obtained establishes who publishes or administers the compositions.
- Territory
- No territorial limitation appears in the credit and none has been established. The phonogram line on I am the Blueprint is byte-identical on the United States, Nigerian, British, South African and French Apple Music storefronts, so there is no visible carve-out for the home market and no separate African rights holder. MusicBrainz records the debut EP, Ole and the deluxe edition with release event XW, worldwide. No term or expiry date for the licence has been established.
- Announced
- 2022-10-14
- Primary document
- Rights registry
- Sources
- Apple Music catalogue lookup for artist 1649561181 (Qing Madi), returning 33 collections with their phonogram credits, fetched 7 September 2026 · Apple Music, album I am the Blueprint on the Nigerian storefront: credit identical to US, GB, ZA and FR · Apple Music, the KFMD and Qing Madi project Barely Legal, 29 May 2026, seven tracks, credited KFMD / MAD Capital Partners under exclusive license to MAD Solutions LLC · MusicBrainz: I am the Blueprint carries labels Columbia and Jton Music; Ole, the deluxe EP, EGO and Scumbag carry BuVision · Deezer catalogue for Qing Madi, 31 releases, no Barely Legal · Deezer, debut EP Qing Madi, label field Bu Vision · Deezer, Loca of 27 August 2025, label field Independent · Columbia Records' own website, artist page for Qing Madi with one item dated 6 February 2023, footer copyright Sony Music Entertainment · Report of 6 June 2026 reproducing at length the statements issued by JTON Entertainment Limited and by KFMD, with the suit number, the judge and the ruling date · Report of 5 June 2026 carrying JTON's statement, including the Sony Music and Bu Vision passage · Trade report of 20 February 2025: BuVision label partnership with Atlantic Music Group, no terms disclosed · Second trade report of 20 February 2025 on the same partnership, no terms disclosed · United Kingdom Companies House: no music or entertainment company named JTON · New York State public dataset of registered business entities: no match for Bu Vision · United States federal docket index: no case naming JTON Entertainment
Read this before citing: This record establishes what the rights chain says on the face of the catalogue. It does not establish the contract behind it. Nothing obtained shows the term of the licence, its territory as drafted, its royalty split, whether it covers publishing, or whether it survives the parties' dispute. Neither JTON Entertainment Limited nor Bu Vision LLC could be resolved to a corporate register: Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission has no public search interface, the United Kingdom register returns no music company named JTON, New York State's public entity dataset returns no match for Bu Vision, and California's business search blocked this server. Four contradictions are on the record and none is resolved. First, Columbia Records carries an artist page for Qing Madi dated 6 February 2023 and appears on no phonogram credit; MusicBrainz names Columbia as a label on I am the Blueprint while Apple's credit on the same album names only JTON and Bu Vision. Second, JTON said on 5 June 2026 that it holds a recording and distribution agreement with Sony Music and Bu Vision, while two trade reports dated 20 February 2025 state that Bu Vision's label partnership moved to Atlantic Music Group, part of Warner Music Group; the two are not necessarily inconsistent, and no document reconciling them has been obtained. Third, the same song Loca exists as two Apple products with two different phonogram owners, bridgeAFRIC and the artist personally, dated twelve days apart. Fourth, the KFMD project Barely Legal is returned by Apple with all seven tracks as of 7 September 2026 while a Deezer catalogue search for the same title returns nothing. JTON's statement says its actions are under the supervision of courts in Nigeria and in New York; a search of the United States federal docket index for JTON Entertainment returned no case, which does not exclude a state court proceeding. The announced date recorded here, 14 October 2022, is the release date of the first recording carrying the credit, not the date of any announcement: no party has ever announced this licence.
Qing Madi’s recorded catalogue from 2022 to 2025 has not been sold to a major label. The sound recording copyright is credited to JTON Music, a Nigerian company that trades under the name JTON Entertainment Limited, and is licensed, exclusively, to Bu Vision LLC.
The evidence is the phonogram credit the rights holder delivers to digital services with the recordings. Apple returns 33 collections for artist 1649561181. On 17 of them Qing Madi is the first credited artist and the release date falls between 14 October 2022 and 12 September 2025. Fifteen of those 17 read “℗ JTON Music, under exclusive license to Bu Vision LLC”. The wording is a licence, not an assignment, and it names the owner and the licensee separately.
The line does not vary by market. Checked on the album “I am the Blueprint”, the credit is identical on the United States, Nigerian, British, South African and French storefronts. No territory is carved out and none is reserved.
Columbia Records, a label of Sony Music Entertainment, carries an artist page for Qing Madi on its own website, holding one item dated 6 February 2023. Columbia appears on no phonogram credit obtained for the catalogue, and no Sony entity appears on any of them. MusicBrainz separately records “Columbia” and “Jton Music” as the two labels on “I am the Blueprint”. A label credit records who released a record. A phonogram credit records who owns or exclusively controls the recording. The registries are describing different things and only one of them names Columbia.
The two releases in the window that do not carry the JTON credit are two separate products of the same song. “LOCA”, dated 15 August 2025, reads “℗ 2026 bridgeAFRIC”. “Loca (feat. Didi B & Jux)”, dated 27 August 2025, reads “℗ 2025 Qing madi”, naming the artist herself as the phonogram owner. Deezer’s label field on the second reads “Independent”.
On 5 June 2026 JTON Entertainment Limited said in a statement issued in its own name that it “also has a recording and distribution agreement with Sony Music and Bu Vision” and that recordings falling within those arrangements “cannot be released, distributed, or commercially exploited outside the agreed structure without the necessary authorisation”. No such agreement has been published by any party. Neither Sony Music Entertainment nor Columbia Records has issued any statement about the artist that this desk has located.
