Qing Madi’s master recordings from 2022 to 2025 are not owned by a major label. They are credited to JTON Music, a Nigerian company that trades as JTON Entertainment Limited, and licensed, exclusively, to Bu Vision LLC, an American one. Columbia Records, which has carried an artist page for her since February 2023, appears on the ownership line of no release at all.
That is not a technicality. It is the difference between owning an asset and renting it, and between a major label owning a catalogue and standing next to one.
The credit line, fifteen releases deep#
Open a Qing Madi record on a streaming service and read the small print: “℗ JTON Music, under exclusive license to Bu Vision LLC”. That is a phonogram credit, the ownership statement a rights holder delivers alongside the audio, and it does two jobs in one sentence. It names JTON as owner of the sound recording copyright, and a different company as the exclusive licensee. Owning and exploiting sit in separate hands, on purpose.
This desk checked every release. Apple returns 33 collections for her artist identifier. On 17 she is the first credited artist, dated between 14 October 2022 and 12 September 2025. Fifteen of those 17 carry that exact line, including the breakout single “See Finish”, the self-titled debut EP of November 2023, the 2025 album “I am the Blueprint” and the single “Scumbag”.
The line does not move by market. Checked on “I am the Blueprint”, it reads identically on the American, Nigerian, British, South African and French storefronts: no African carve-out, no separate home-market rights holder, no visible territorial split of any kind. Deezer’s label field on the same catalogue reads “Bu Vision”. MusicBrainz records “BuVision” as the label on four releases. Three independent sources, one licensee.
Columbia has a page, not a credit#
Columbia Records runs an artist page for Qing Madi on its own website, carrying one item dated 6 February 2023 with a press photograph served from Sony Music Entertainment’s own content host. The page was live on 7 September 2026, more than a year after her last release under the JTON credit.
Columbia is not in the phonogram credit on any of those releases. Neither is any other Sony entity. The label’s public presentation of the relationship and the catalogue’s record of it describe two different things, and only one is a statement about ownership.
There is a wrinkle, and it is a finding rather than a problem. MusicBrainz records two labels on “I am the Blueprint”: “Columbia” and “Jton Music”. Apple’s phonogram line on that album names JTON and Bu Vision and nobody else. Both are accurate about what they record. A label credit says who put a record out. A phonogram credit says who owns or exclusively controls it. Reading only the first is how a distribution arrangement gets reported as a signing.
What Bu Vision is, and where it went#
Bu Vision LLC was founded by the executive Abou “Bu” Thiam. Trade reporting in April 2022 described it as a joint venture with Columbia Records, announced alongside Thiam’s appointment as an executive vice president of that label. That is the chain through which a Nigerian teenager’s catalogue reached a major label system: artist to Nigerian label, Nigerian label to American licensee, licensee to a joint venture with a Sony imprint. The major sits at the far end of three links.
Then the far end moved. Two trade reports published on 20 February 2025 state that Thiam brought BuVision to Atlantic Music Group, part of Warner Music Group, with BuVision projects to be marketed and released through Atlantic. Neither discloses financial terms. Neither says what became of the Columbia arrangement.
Qing Madi’s credit line did not change. Her single “Scumbag”, released on 12 September 2025, seven months after that announcement, still reads “℗ 2025 JTON Music, under exclusive license to Bu Vision LLC”. Whatever moved between two majors, the licence between a Lagos company and an American one stayed where it was.
Which makes one line in a statement JTON issued on 5 June 2026 worth reading slowly. The company said it “also has a recording and distribution agreement with Sony Music and Bu Vision”. Sixteen months after Bu Vision’s label partnership was reported to have gone to Warner, JTON was still asserting a live agreement naming Sony. The two are not necessarily inconsistent, because a licence to Bu Vision and a separate Sony agreement can both exist. But no document reconciling them has been obtained, and no Sony entity has said anything publicly about the artist.
Where the credit line stops#
The JTON credit runs unbroken from October 2022 to September 2025 and then stops. It has not appeared on a Qing Madi release since.
The two releases inside that window that break the pattern are two products of the same song. “LOCA”, dated 15 August 2025, reads “℗ 2026 bridgeAFRIC”. “Loca (feat. Didi B & Jux)”, dated twelve days later, reads “℗ 2025 Qing madi”, naming the artist herself as the phonogram owner. From April 2026 her releases carry KFMD alongside MAD Solutions LLC and MAD Capital Partners.
Both JTON and KFMD issued statements on 5 June 2026 about 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. They describe that ruling in incompatible terms. JTON says the court granted part of its interlocutory injunction application, restraining the artist from releasing or performing music produced, promoted or financed under JTON pending determination of the suit. KFMD says the court held that the contracts JTON relied on were infancy contracts executed when she was 16, were voidable, were validly repudiated at adulthood, and that the order granted was a narrow holding measure over specific recordings. This desk has not obtained the judgment and adopts neither account.
One consequence is visible in the catalogue now. The project “Barely Legal” is returned by Apple in full, all seven tracks, on 7 September 2026. A Deezer catalogue search for the same title returns nothing.
What this means for artists#
Three things transfer from this structure to anyone signing one like it.
First, a major label’s website is not a rights document. Being on Columbia’s artist page and being on Columbia’s copyright line are different states of the world, and only one is enforceable. The phonogram credit is the shortest public statement of who owns your masters, and it takes about eleven seconds to check. Do it before a dispute rather than during one.
Second, when you license to an intermediary, you are exposed to the intermediary’s next deal, not just your own. The Bu Vision licence on this catalogue survived its counterparty’s move from one major to another, unchanged, with no announcement and no visible consent step involving the artist. Ask what happens to your recordings if your licensee’s upstream partner changes, before the question arises.
Third, the structure that keeps ownership in Africa also keeps it out of public view. JTON owning these masters rather than a major is the outcome the whole “keep African IP African” argument asks for. But JTON could not be resolved to any corporate register: Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission has no public search interface, and the United Kingdom register carries no music company of that name. Bu Vision could not be resolved either. Two of the three companies in this chain are invisible on the corporate record, and the artist who signed at 16 had no more access than anyone else.
Questions and answers#
Who owns Qing Madi’s masters?#
JTON Music, a Nigerian company trading as JTON Entertainment Limited, is named as owner of the sound recording copyright on 15 releases dated between 14 October 2022 and 12 September 2025. Bu Vision LLC holds an exclusive licence on them. The credit is identical on five storefronts checked.
Is Qing Madi signed to Columbia Records?#
Columbia carries an artist page for her, dated 6 February 2023 and live on 7 September 2026. It does not appear in the phonogram credit on any of her releases, and neither does any other Sony entity. What the contractual relationship is, if any, has not been established from any document.
Who distributes the catalogue?#
Not established. JTON said on 5 June 2026 that it holds “a recording and distribution agreement with Sony Music and Bu Vision”. No such agreement has been published and no Sony entity appears on any credit obtained.
What was the deal worth?#
Not disclosed. A phonogram credit never records consideration, and no party has published the licence. No advance, royalty rate or fee has been established.
What could not be established#
The term of the licence, its expiry, its drafted territory, its royalty split and whether it touches publishing: none of it appears in any document obtained, and the compositions are a separate chain this record does not reach. Nor could the corporate identities of JTON Entertainment Limited, Bu Vision LLC or KFMD be resolved to a register, nor what the letters KFMD stand for, nor the relationship between KFMD, MAD Solutions LLC and MAD Capital Partners. On the New York proceeding JTON referred to in its statement, a search of the United States federal docket index for the company returned no case, which does not exclude a state court filing that index does not cover.
The transaction record for this licence, with every primary document cited, is in the Afrobeats Wire deal database. Company profiles: JTON Entertainment Limited, Bu Vision LLC, Columbia Records, KFMD.
