Who Owns Teni’s Masters? Sugar Mummy Does. Four Companies Have Licensed or Distributed Them Since 2024

Teni’s master recordings are owned by Sugar Mummy, the company named as phonogram owner on her releases since June 2022. Before that, from May 2018 through late 2021, the owner named on her records was Dr Dolor Entertainment, with no licence language attached. What has changed repeatedly since November 2024 is not the owner but the company named alongside it: Dvpper Digital Ltd under exclusive licence, then Artist House, LLC under exclusive licence, then a distribution credit to Oneofakind Music Distribution, and from April 2026 a credit reading gamma. Africa. Four counterparties in seventeen months. No party has disclosed a figure, a term or a territory for any of them, and no party has publicly explained what happened to the Artist House licence.

What the credit line actually says, in order

This desk read Apple’s catalogue metadata for the artist Teni in full on 21 September 2026, covering 173 catalogue entries from 2016 onward. The phonogram credit, the line beginning with the ℗ symbol, is a standing public declaration of who owns a recording and who, if anyone, is licensed to exploit it. It is the method this desk used to date CKay’s masters moving out of Warner into his own company: the credit changes on a dated release when the rights position changes.

The Dr Dolor era is unambiguous. From the single “Lagos”, released 8 May 2018, through the album WONDALAND (19 March 2021) and the EP MOSLADO REFIX (8 October 2021), the line reads simply “℗ Dr Dolor Entertainment”. There is no “under exclusive license to” clause in it, which on its face makes the label the outright owner rather than a licensee. One 2021 single, “Dorime”, adds “Distributed by Dvpper”, a different relationship again that did not move the ownership.

The first break comes in May 2022. The single “One Day” carries “℗ 2022 TENI”. Three weeks later “MY WAY (E Get Why) [Freestyle]” carries “℗ 2022 TENI APATA”, her own name in full. On 24 June 2022 “LITTLE & LEGENDARY” carries “℗ 2022 Sugar Mummy”, the first appearance of the company that has held the ownership position ever since. It is the same phrase as her 2019 Dr Dolor single “Sugar Mummy”, which is suggestive but is not a document, and no corporate filing naming her as the company’s principal could be located.

It hardens through 2023: “No Days Off” in May and the album TEARS OF THE SUN in November both read “℗ 2023 Sugar Mummy Records”, with no licensee named at all.

Two owners, one song, same day

The transition out of Dr Dolor was not clean, and the catalogue preserves the mess. The single “Christmas is Here”, dated 22 December 2023, exists twice under separate identifiers. One copy reads “℗ 2023 Dr Dolor Entertainment”. The other reads “℗ 2023 Sugar Mummy Records”. Same title, same date, two different declared owners, both live.

Nor did the Dr Dolor credit stop in 2021. A single titled “Amebo”, dated 2 August 2024, carries “℗ 2024 Dr Dolor Entertainment”, more than two years after the first Sugar Mummy credit. Whether that is a recording made in the Dr Dolor years and delivered late, a re-delivery, or a continuing arrangement cannot be established from metadata alone. Credits are supplied by whoever delivers a release, so a re-delivery can change the line without any rights moving, and several older Teni titles carry recently issued identifiers. What is firmer: no document read here states that the 2018 to 2021 masters ever left Dr Dolor Entertainment, and this record does not assert that they did.

Owns, licenses, distributes: three relationships, three credits

From November 2024 the line starts naming a second company, and the wording is not decorative. “Jostimilo”, released 28 November 2024, reads “℗ 2024 Sugar Mummy Records, Under exclusive license to Dvpper Digital Ltd.” That is a real rights interest: the owner stays the owner, the licensee gets the exclusive right to exploit it.

Two months later the licensee is different. “Money”, released 24 January 2025, reads “℗ 2025 Sugar Mummy under exclusive license to Artist House, LLC”. The same line appears on the “Money (goddard. Remix)” in March 2025 and on the single “Speed” dated 14 November 2025.

Trade coverage dated 17 September 2025, built on interviews with both Artist House founders, named Teni among the company’s artists for both label and management. Artist House is a New York company founded by songwriter and producer Gregg Wattenberg and Steve Lerner, co-founder and former chief executive of Wind-Up Entertainment, running four businesses at 60 Charlton Street: a studio complex, a label, a publishing company and AH Management Collective. Artists sign 50-50 deals. Five per cent comes off the artist’s half and five off the company’s, and that ten per cent is pooled for the songwriters on the record. One founder put the arithmetic plainly: “Given that it’s split with the artist, we’re really only giving up 5% of the master. If a song makes $100 million, we still get $45 million.”

Note what that is and is not. A 50-50 split is a revenue term. It says nothing about who holds the copyright, and the credit answers that separately: Sugar Mummy owns, Artist House licenses.

The licence that stopped appearing

“Speed” is the last Teni release on which Artist House appears at all. On 13 February 2026 the single “Labubu” reads “℗ 2026 Sugar Mummy Group; Distributed by Oneofakind Music Distribution”. Distribution, not an exclusive licence, and no Artist House. On 24 April 2026 “Zion”, with Olamide, reads “℗ 2026 gamma. Africa”, with no Sugar Mummy on the line at all, the only post-2022 lead release where her own company is absent. On 24 July 2026 the EP The Wellness Package reads “℗ 2026 gamma. Africa / Sugar Mummy Records”, two names joined by a slash with nothing to explain the relationship between them.

Trade coverage of the EP, carried on a Nigerian wire on 24 July 2026, called it “the beginning of Teni’s strategic partnership with Gamma” and quoted three named executives: gamma. founder and chief executive Larry Jackson, gamma. Africa president Sipho Dlamini, and gamma. Africa vice-president Larry Gaaga. “Strategic partnership” is not a rights term. It does not say licence, distribution or assignment. gamma. is a label-services and distribution company rather than a traditional label, and it holds phonogram credits on releases it distributes for other African artists, so a credit in its name does not by itself establish ownership.

Here is what could not be established, and this desk checked. No party has announced that the Artist House agreement ended, expired or was bought out. No party has said whether gamma. Africa holds a licence, a distribution agreement or something else, or why “Zion” carries gamma. Africa alone while the EP three months later carries both names. One observation is available, reported as exactly that: on 21 September 2026, Artist House’s management page lists thirteen artists and its label page eleven, and Teni is on neither, while artists named alongside her in the September 2025 coverage, including Lindsey Stirling and Princess Nokia, are still listed. Absence from a roster page is not a termination notice and is not treated as one here.

No consideration, advance, royalty rate, term or territory has been disclosed for any of the four arrangements. Publishing is outside this record: no publisher or administrator for Teni’s compositions was identified, and nothing here claims anything about who controls the songs.

What this means for artists

Read the ℗ line before you read the announcement. A press release can call something a partnership, a signing or a deal and leave the structure to your imagination. The credit is a public, dated statement of who owns the recording and who is licensed to exploit it. Teni’s catalogue is legible because that line kept being filed, whatever anyone announced.

Owning the masters and controlling their exploitation are separate questions, and winning the first does not settle the second. Sugar Mummy has held the ownership position without interruption since 2022, and in the same period the company entitled to exploit those recordings has been named as four different businesses. That is what an owner-led structure looks like in practice, but it means the leverage sits in the term length and exit terms of each licence, not in the ownership line you already won.

Get the wording right in your own paperwork, because the platforms publish it. “Under exclusive license to” and “distributed by” are not synonyms, and they sit in public metadata for years. If your distributor drafts that line, read it before delivery and check it again after any re-delivery: this investigation found one Teni single in the catalogue twice on the same date with two different owners declared, the kind of error that gets expensive when a royalty claim or a catalogue sale turns on it.

Limits of this record. The ownership sequence comes from Apple’s catalogue metadata for the artist Teni, Apple artist identifier 575029243, read directly and in full on 21 September 2026 rather than through any secondary summary. Artist House’s structure, terms and roster listings come from its own website and from two trade interviews with both founders published on 17 September 2025. The gamma. partnership description and the executive quotes come from Nigerian trade reports of 24 July 2026 and April 2026. All were read directly. This desk did not verify the date or wording of any public statement by Teni about leaving Dr Dolor Entertainment and makes no claim about one. No filing naming Teniola Apata as principal of Sugar Mummy Records was located, and none is asserted.