Phyno’s Catalogue Has Carried ‘Penthauze / MAD Solutions LLC’ Since 2022. The Joint Credit States No Structure At All.

Deal sheet

Status

Unresolved

Type

Distribution

Parties

Penthauze, MAD Solutions

Amount

Not disclosed

Rights covered

Sound recordings only. No publishing right is named in any source located.

The credit reads, verbatim, "Penthauze / MAD Solutions LLC" on every own-billed Phyno release from 29 July 2022 onward. That is a joint slash-form credit, the same convention used elsewhere on this desk for parties who share a copyright line without either being described as licensor or licensee. It does not use the words "under exclusive licence from" or "under exclusive licence to," the wording that would identify who is granting rights to whom. On the face of the document, no legal structure is stated: not licensing, not distribution, not a joint venture, not an acquisition. It records only that both names sit on the copyright line together.

MAD Solutions LLC's own material, and the trade press quoted below, describe the company as a distributor and aggregator, so "Distribution" is the deal type filed here. That classification rests on how the company describes itself and how trade press describes its relationship with a roster that includes Phyno, not on anything the credit line itself states.

The credit is not new to 2022. Five releases dated between 21 June 2017 and 4 September 2019, being "If to Say," "Isi Ego," "Fuwa Sewa," "Iyilu Ife" and "Deal with It," already carry the joint credit, interspersed on the release calendar with other Phyno singles in the same window, including "Zamo Zamo," "Augment," "Onyeoma," "N.W.A," "Iwa" and "Oil," that carry only "Penthauze" with no MAD Solutions credit at all. Both forms of credit therefore coexisted for roughly five years before the joint form became universal.

Two further collection entries complicate the picture rather than clarify it. "No Guts No Glory" and "The Playmaker" each exist twice in the catalogue under different collection IDs, both instances dated to the same original release date, 15 May 2014 and 1 November 2016 respectively, but one instance of each carries only "Penthauze" and the other carries "Penthauze / MAD Solutions LLC." MAD Solutions LLC did not exist on either date: trade press dates its founding to 2017. The MAD-credited instances of these two titles are therefore re-deliveries, catalogue entries created after 2017 and backdated to the original release date, not evidence of a relationship in 2014 or 2016.

From "Full Current (That's My Baby)" on 29 July 2022 forward, the joint credit is unbroken across every own-billed release read, with one exception: "Do I (Remix)," released 21 December 2023 with Burna Boy, reads "Penthauze / Spaceship Ent." instead, naming neither MAD Solutions nor any licence relationship. Spaceship Entertainment is a separate company in this directory. No source located explains the substitution.

Deezer's structured label field was checked against three releases from the continuous 2022-2026 run, being "Back Outside" (2024-12-10), "Deep" (2025-02-20) and "Ask Of Me Now" (2025-10-31). All three read simply "Penthauze" in Deezer's label field. MAD Solutions does not appear in any of them. The same divergence, a distributor named on one service's metadata and absent from another's, was not resolved by any source available to this desk.

Territory

Not stated in the credit line. Unlike some phonogram credits on this desk that open with a country name before the company, for example "South Africa – Sony Music Entertainment Africa (Pty) Ltd," none of Phyno's credit lines carry a territory qualifier of any kind. The Apple catalogue was read on the Nigerian storefront. MAD Solutions LLC's own material describes operations spanning Nigeria, South Africa, Canada and the United States, and trade press describes a roster distributed across multiple African markets, but none of that establishes the territory of whatever arrangement the joint credit records. No territory can be read from the primary source.

Primary document

Rights registry

Sources

Apple catalogue lookup for Phyno (Apple artist ID 514017875), Nigerian storefront, HTTP 200, resultCount 188, read 25 September 2026, returning the phonogram credit line and release date for every release in the catalogue from 2014 to 2026, including every own-billed release from 29 July 2022 onward naming Penthauze and MAD Solutions LLC in a joint slash-form credit, five earlier releases between June 2017 and September 2019 naming the same two parties, and two releases dated 2014 and 2016 that also name MAD Solutions LLC despite predating the company's founding in 2017 · Deezer album endpoint for Back Outside, read 25 September 2026, returning label "Penthauze", release date 2024-12-10 and UPC 704260890875. No MAD Solutions credit in this field · Deezer album endpoint for Deep, read 25 September 2026, returning label "Penthauze", release date 2025-02-20 and UPC 704260747575. No MAD Solutions credit in this field · Deezer album endpoint for Ask Of Me Now, read 25 September 2026, returning label "Penthauze", release date 2025-10-31 and UPC 601527039612. No MAD Solutions credit in this field · MusicBrainz artist entry for Phyno, read 25 September 2026. A release query against this artist ID returned only two releases, both features on other artists' work, "Lover" with Johnny Drille (2022) and "Karishika" with Falz and Chigurl (2015), with label-info naming Mavin Global Holdings Ltd and Jungle Entertainment respectively. No own-billed Phyno release resolves against this ID, so MusicBrainz neither corroborates nor contradicts the Apple credit lines · Trade profile published 26 August 2022, describing MAD Solutions as a distributor and reading, verbatim: "In the Nigerian music scene, MAD Solutions has distributed and/or is still distributing for artists such as Simi, Reekado Banks, P-Square, Runtown, Ric Hassani, Asa, Phyno, Maleek Berry, King Perryy, Skales, Seyi Shay, Liya and many more." It names no deal type, term, territory or consideration specific to Phyno · Trade profile published 15 August 2022, establishing that MAD Solutions, an initialism of Measurable Accurate Digital Solutions, was founded by Bugwu Aneto-Okeke and launched in 2017. Used here to establish that the MAD Solutions credit on two 2014- and 2016-dated catalogue entries cannot record a contemporaneous relationship. Does not mention Phyno

Read this before citing: THIS IS NOT A RECORD OF A DISCLOSED TRANSACTION. No distribution agreement, licence or investment is claimed here as a legal fact, and no party has published an announcement naming Phyno and MAD Solutions LLC together. What is established is narrower: since 29 July 2022 every own-billed Phyno release read on Apple Music's Nigerian storefront carries a joint copyright credit reading "Penthauze / MAD Solutions LLC," trade press from August 2022 separately names Phyno among artists MAD Solutions "has distributed and/or is still distributing for," and neither source describes the terms of any arrangement.

A SLASH IS NOT A LICENCE. This desk has previously filed a deal, involving The Big Hash and Sony Music Entertainment Africa, where the credit line used the words "under exclusive licence from," language that names a licensor and a licensee. Phyno's credit uses no such language. "Penthauze / MAD Solutions LLC" is the joint form, the same convention Sony Music Entertainment Africa itself uses elsewhere for co-credits that are not stated to be licences. Filing this record as a distribution deal rests on how MAD Solutions describes its own business and how trade press describes the relationship, not on the credit line, which states no structure at all.

NO AMOUNT, TERM OR TERRITORY EXISTS ANYWHERE. No source located states an amount, a currency, a start date, an end date or a territory for whatever arrangement the joint credit records. "Not disclosed" is accurate; it is not a placeholder for a figure this desk failed to find.

THE CREDIT PREDATES 2022 ON FIVE TITLES, AND COEXISTS WITH A PLAIN CREDIT FOR YEARS. "If to Say" (21 June 2017), "Isi Ego" (1 February 2018), "Fuwa Sewa" (7 August 2018), "Iyilu Ife" (8 December 2018) and "Deal with It" (4 September 2019) all carry the MAD Solutions credit years before it becomes universal. In the same window, "Zamo Zamo," "Augment," "Onyeoma," "N.W.A," "Iwa" and "Oil" carry only "Penthauze." Two credit forms ran in parallel on the same artist's output for roughly five years. No source explains why some titles carried the joint credit and others did not.

TWO CATALOGUE ENTRIES ARE DEMONSTRABLY RETROACTIVE. "No Guts No Glory" and "The Playmaker" each exist under two separate Apple collection IDs, both dated to the same original release date, but only one instance of each carries the MAD Solutions credit. Those dates, 15 May 2014 and 1 November 2016, both predate MAD Solutions LLC's founding, which trade press dates to 2017. The MAD-credited instances cannot record a contemporaneous relationship; they are re-deliveries created after 2017 and backdated. This is direct, primary-source evidence that at least some of the MAD Solutions credit on Phyno's catalogue was applied retrospectively to older material, which is a normal thing for a distributor to do with a new client's back catalogue and is not evidence of wrongdoing, but it means the presence of the credit on any single release cannot by itself be read as proof of when a relationship began.

ONE RELEASE IN THE CONTINUOUS RUN NAMES A DIFFERENT COMPANY. "Do I (Remix)," released 21 December 2023 with Burna Boy, reads "Penthauze / Spaceship Ent." instead of "Penthauze / MAD Solutions LLC," the only break in an otherwise unbroken run from July 2022 to August 2026. Spaceship Entertainment is a separate, unrelated company in this directory. No source explains the substitution. This could reflect a featured artist's own distribution arrangement applying to a remix, a one-off licensing choice, or something else; this desk does not choose between them.

DEEZER'S LABEL FIELD NEVER NAMES MAD SOLUTIONS. Three releases from the continuous 2022-2026 run were checked against Deezer's structured label field, and all three read "Penthauze" alone. This is a real disagreement between two commercial metadata sources describing the same recordings; different services can carry different delivered metadata for the same product, and this record does not resolve which is more current.

MUSICBRAINZ DOES NOT COVER PHYNO'S OWN CATALOGUE. A release query against Phyno's MusicBrainz artist ID returns only two results, both features on other artists' releases, neither involving Penthauze or MAD Solutions. MusicBrainz is cited here for completeness and corroborates nothing about this arrangement.

NO PUBLISHING INFORMATION WAS ESTABLISHED. No source located names a publisher or administrator for the songwriting on any release discussed here. Nothing in this record should be read as a statement about the publishing side.

MAD SOLUTIONS IS NOT THE CAIRO FILM COMPANY OF THE SAME NAME. Search results for "MAD Solutions" surface an unrelated Cairo-based film distribution and marketing company, co-headed by Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab, with no connection to Phyno, Penthauze or Nigerian music. Every source cited in this record concerns the Lagos-founded music distributor, Measurable Accurate Digital Solutions.