Deal sheet
- Status
- Documented by phonogram credit only. No party (Rexxie, HitxLab, Dvpper Digital, Dapper Group or Africori) has published a statement, announcement or agreement explaining the change. Whether the Dvpper Music relationship was ended by Rexxie, by Dapper Group, or expired on its own terms is not established. A separate, unresolved thread concerns Africori: its branded smart-link domain has carried Rexxie releases from both before and after the credit change, and a Warner Music Group newsroom release names Rexxie among artists on whose projects its newly appointed Africori General Manager has worked, but no document checked states that Africori distributes, licenses or has ever signed Rexxie. See caveat.
- Type
- Distribution
- Parties
- HitxLab NG, Dvpper Digital
- Amount
- N/A Not applicable. No transaction has been announced by any party. This record documents a change in the phonogram (sound-recording) rightsholder credit printed on commercial release metadata, not a disclosed or undisclosed sale, licence fee or advance.
- Rights covered
- Sound-recording (phonogram) credit only, as printed on commercial release metadata. A printed phonogram credit is evidence of what Apple Music and Deezer were told to display by whoever delivered the release; it is not, by itself, proof of beneficial master-recording ownership, and this record does not treat it as one. Publishing (songwriting) rights are NOT covered: no writer or publisher registration for any Rexxie-produced work was retrieved.
- Territory
- Not disclosed. No contractual territory is stated in any document obtained. The releases are available on Apple Music, Deezer and Audiomack across Nigerian and international storefronts, which evidences distribution reach only, not the scope of any agreement.
- Announced
- Never announced as a transaction by any party. The clearest anchor found by this desk is one album released in two editions: 'Big Time' (9 March 2023) carries the credit 'HitxlabNG / Dvpper Music'; 'BIG TIME (Deluxe)' (10 November 2023) carries 'HITXLAB NG' alone. The first own-artist release found with no Dvpper credit at all is 'GAZO' (feat. CDQ), 14 July 2023. The last with a Dvpper credit is the standard 'Big Time' edition, 9 March 2023.
- Primary document
- Rights registry
- Sources
- Apple Music catalogue metadata for Rexxie (artist ID 1343801589), 80 releases, read directly via the iTunes Lookup API on 27 October 2026. · Deezer album record for "Big Time" (standard edition), released 2023-03-09, label field "HitxlabNG / Dvpper Music", UPC 757572943708. Last Dvpper-credited release found on either service. · Deezer album record for "BIG TIME (Deluxe)", released 2023-11-10, label field "HITXLAB NG", UPC 766214658955. Same album as the row above, re-released eight months later with no Dvpper credit. The single cleanest before/after anchor this desk found. · Deezer album record for "A True Champion", released 2021-06-28, label field "The HitxLab NG / Dvpper Music", UPC 757572920686 · Deezer album record for "KPK (Ko Por Ke)", released 2020-12-04, label field "The HitxLab NG / Dvpper Music", UPC 757572915781 · Deezer album record for "NO MORE CONDITION", released 2022-12-07, label field "Hitxlab NG / Dvpper Music", UPC 757572942961 · Deezer album record for "Abracadabra", released 2022-10-06, label field "Dvpper Music" only. Apple Music's copyright line for the same release reads "Hitxlab NG / Dvpper Music"; Deezer's separate label field drops the HitxLab half. Reported as a cross-source discrepancy, not resolved. · Deezer album record for "BIG VYBZ", released 2025-10-24, label field "HITXLAB NG", UPC 766214687429 · Deezer album record for "REMEMBER", released 2026-07-08, label field "HITXLAB NG", UPC 766214701491 · Audiomack album page for "A True Champion", credited "(P) 2021 The HitxLab NG / Dvpper Music", released 28 June 2021 · Audiomack track page for "NO MORE CONDITION", credited "(P) 2022 Hitxlab NG / Dvpper Music", released 7 December 2022, from the album Big Time (Deluxe) · Apple Music album page for "BIG VYBZ", credited "(P) 2025 HITXLAB NG", released 24 October 2025. No Dvpper credit. · Apple Music track page for "REMEMBER", by Rexxie & Ayox, released 8 July 2026. This track-level page does not display a phonogram line; the label credit is taken from the Deezer record for the same release, above. · Africori's own branded smart-link domain, HTTP 200, for the 2020 release "KPK (Ko Por Ke)", a release that itself carries a Dvpper phonogram credit. Evidence Africori operated a promotional link for this release; not evidence of distribution or rights ownership. · africori.to, HTTP 200, for "A True Champion" (2021), another Dvpper-credited release · africori.to, HTTP 200, for "NO MORE CONDITION" (2022), another Dvpper-credited release · africori.to, HTTP 200, for "BIG VYBZ" (2025), a release carrying no Dvpper credit. Page source confirms this domain is Feature.fm white-label infrastructure (oEmbed endpoint api.ffm.to/smartlink/oembed), not a bespoke Africori system; a working smart link evidences a promotional page, not a distribution or signing relationship. · africori.to, HTTP 200, for "Focus" (2025, from BIG VYBZ), a release carrying no Dvpper credit · africori.to, HTTP 404, for "Afro Streets" (2020), a Dvpper-credited release. Smart-link coverage is therefore inconsistent even within the Dvpper-credited period, and cannot be read as marking distribution start or end dates. · Warner Music Group's own newsroom, 19 June 2026, fetched and read directly: names Adam Tiran General Manager of Africori and states "Tiran has championed the international trajectories of some of the continent's most defining musical voices, managing high-profile projects and collaborations for artists including Blxckie, Focalistic, Kelvin Momo, Jux, Marioo, Master KG, Rexxie and Sjava." This first-party document does not state that Africori distributes, licenses or has signed Rexxie; "managing high-profile projects and collaborations" is not defined and the release names no agreement with him. · Trade report on the same appointment, corroborating the Warner newsroom release, 19 June 2026 · Africori's own editorial site, fetched directly, HTTP 200: covers Rexxie's single "Back2Back" with Bella Shmurda in a roundup post. Names no distribution deal, no signing and no label relationship; neither "HitxLab" nor "Dvpper" appears anywhere on the page. · UK Companies House company-name search for "hitxlab", zero results · MusicBrainz label search for "HitxLab", zero results · MusicBrainz release-group browse for Rexxie's artist entity (MBID 110a1437-1173-4ab8-8867-66e04e9af23f), zero results. MusicBrainz holds no release data at all for this artist.
Read this before citing: ESTABLISHED, FROM CATALOGUE METADATA. Rexxie's own-artist phonogram credit has named his own imprint, in varying spellings ("The Hit Lab", "Hitxlabng", "The HitxLab NG", "HITXLAB NG"), continuously from "FotiFoyin" (1 March 2019) through his most recent 2026 output, read directly from the iTunes Lookup API for artist ID 1343801589 (80 releases) and independently corroborated on Deezer. Separately, Dvpper Music, the distribution arm of Lagos's Dapper Group, was named alongside that credit from "Keep Your Kpali" (22 October 2019, "Distributed by Dapper") through the standard edition of "Big Time" (9 March 2023). No own-artist release checked from 14 July 2023 ("GAZO" feat. CDQ) onward carries a Dvpper credit on either Apple Music or Deezer. The cleanest single demonstration is one album in two editions: the standard "Big Time" (9 March 2023) reads "HitxlabNG / Dvpper Music" on both services; "BIG TIME (Deluxe)" (10 November 2023), the same album, reads "HITXLAB NG" alone on both.
NOT ESTABLISHED: WHY THE CREDIT CHANGED. No statement, announcement or agreement from Rexxie, HitxLab, Dvpper Digital, Dapper Group or any other party explaining the change was located. Nigerian artists have publicly disputed Dapper Group contract terms before (see this desk's own reporting on Seyi Vibez, Shallipopi, Muyeez and T.I Blaze), but those four departures are dated September 2024 through August 2026, all after Rexxie's credit had already changed, so that pattern was checked and does not fit this timeline. Whether the Dvpper relationship ended by mutual agreement, lapsed on its own term, or ended in dispute is not established, and this record does not guess.
A CROSS-SOURCE DISCREPANCY ON "ABRACADABRA". Apple Music's copyright line for "Abracadabra" (6 October 2022) reads "Hitxlab NG / Dvpper Music". Deezer's separate label field for the same release reads "Dvpper Music" only, dropping the HitxLab half. This is reported as a discrepancy between the two services, not resolved, and not treated as evidence that HitxLab's role lapsed mid-2022; every other release in the window names both.
THE AFRICORI THREAD WAS CHECKED AND IS NOT ESTABLISHED. Africori's own branded smart-link domain, africori.to, resolves (HTTP 200) for Rexxie releases spanning both eras: "KPK" (2020, Dvpper-credited), "A True Champion" (2021, Dvpper-credited) and "NO MORE CONDITION" (2022, Dvpper-credited), as well as "BIG VYBZ" (2025) and "Focus" (2025, both HitxLab-only). It returns HTTP 404 for "Afro Streets" (2020), so coverage is inconsistent even within a single era and cannot be read as marking when any Africori relationship began or ended. The page source for these links confirms the domain is Feature.fm's white-label smart-link product (oEmbed endpoint api.ffm.to/smartlink/oembed), which is promotional link infrastructure, not a distribution or publishing system; a working smart link is evidence Africori built a landing page for a release, not evidence it distributes, licenses or administers it. Warner Music Group's own 19 June 2026 newsroom announcement naming Adam Tiran as Africori's General Manager states that he has been "managing high-profile projects and collaborations for artists including Blxckie, Focalistic, Kelvin Momo, Jux, Marioo, Master KG, Rexxie and Sjava"; neither that phrase nor any other document checked states that Africori distributes, licenses, or has ever signed Rexxie. Africori's own editorial site, fetched directly, covers a 2021 Rexxie single without naming any deal, and names neither HitxLab nor Dvpper. No party has stated a distribution, licensing or signing relationship between Africori and Rexxie, and none is claimed here. A secondary web search result describing a 2026 YouTube upload of "REMEMBER" as carrying "distribution by Africori" could not be verified: YouTube's video-description text is not retrievable by this desk's automated tools (the rendered page returns only player configuration JavaScript, and third-party frontends tested returned anti-bot interstitials), so that specific claim was not relied upon.
THE REGISTERED ENTITY BEHIND THE CREDIT IS NOT CONFIRMED. UK Companies House returns zero results for "hitxlab" in any form, and MusicBrainz's label database returns zero results for "HitxLab". Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission has no public search tool this desk could access, so a Nigerian incorporation could not be checked, confirmed or ruled out. A separate company, "Hitxlab Entertainment", appears in search-indexed excerpts of a March 2020 Nigerian trade report on a production training camp it ran jointly with Rexxie, naming Alao Abdulkabir Abiola as its Managing Director; the source itself (tooxclusive.com) returns HTTP 403 to this desk's automated requests and could not be fetched and read directly, so this detail is reported as an indexed excerpt this desk could not independently verify, not as a confirmed fact, and it is not used to establish who owns or controls the phonogram-credit entity.
MUSICBRAINZ HAS NO RELEASE DATA FOR THIS ARTIST AT ALL. A direct browse of Rexxie's MusicBrainz artist entity (MBID 110a1437-1173-4ab8-8867-66e04e9af23f) for release groups returns zero results, despite an 80-release Apple Music catalogue. This is a gap in MusicBrainz's coverage of Nigerian independent catalogues, not a finding about Rexxie's rights.
WHAT THIS RECORD DOES NOT CLAIM. It does not claim Rexxie owns or does not own his own master recordings; the HitxLab credit is reported as a phonogram-credit name only, consistent with house practice on unregistered P-line entities (compare this desk's record on Naira Marley's "My Type Of Music" credit). It does not claim Africori has any role in his catalogue beyond the promotional smart links documented above. It does not cover publishing or songwriting rights, which were not checked.
Rexxie released the album “Big Time” on 9 March 2023 with the phonogram credit “HitxlabNG / Dvpper Music” printed on every track. Eight months later, on 10 November 2023, he reissued the same album as “BIG TIME (Deluxe),” adding four tracks. The credit on that edition reads “HITXLAB NG,” full stop. Nobody announced a change. No contract surfaced. The second name on the line simply stopped appearing, and it has not appeared since.
A constant name, and a companion that came and went
One name has stayed put across Rexxie’s entire recorded career. From his first commercial single, “FotiFoyin” in March 2019, through his most recent 2026 releases, Apple Music’s catalogue metadata for the producer, born Chisom Ezeh, has credited his own imprint on effectively every own-artist release, spelled variously as “The Hit Lab,” “Hitxlabng,” “The HitxLab NG” and “HITXLAB NG.” Eighty releases pulled directly from Apple’s catalogue API confirm it, and Deezer’s independent label field agrees on every date checked.
A second name rode alongside that one for almost four years. Starting with “Keep Your Kpali” on 22 October 2019, credited “Distributed by Dapper,” Rexxie’s releases began naming Dvpper Music, the distribution arm of Lagos’s Dapper Group. Through the Zanku-era run that made his name, including “KPK (Ko Por Ke)” with MohBad (4 December 2020) and his debut album “A True Champion” (28 June 2021), the credit reads some version of “The HitxLab NG / Dvpper Music.” It is still there on “NO MORE CONDITION” in December 2022 and on the standard edition of “Big Time” in March 2023.
Then it is gone. “GAZO,” featuring CDQ and released 14 July 2023, is the first own-artist release this desk could find carrying no Dvpper credit at all. Every release since, through “BIG VYBZ” in October 2025 and “REMEMBER” in July 2026, names HitxLab alone.
The cleanest test is the same album, twice
Most credit transitions in a catalogue are easy to argue with, because an artist’s sound, collaborators and distribution habits can all change at once for reasons that have nothing to do with rights. “Big Time” removes that ambiguity. It is the same body of work, repackaged eight months apart. The standard edition, under Dvpper. The deluxe edition, without it. Deezer’s separate label field, pulled directly from its catalogue API rather than Apple’s, independently returns the identical pattern on both editions down to the UPC codes, which rules out a one-platform data error.
One release in the window does not line up cleanly. “Abracadabra,” from October 2022, carries “Hitxlab NG / Dvpper Music” on Apple Music’s copyright line, but Deezer’s label field for the same release drops the HitxLab half and shows “Dvpper Music” alone. That is reported here as a disagreement between two platforms’ metadata, not as evidence that anything changed mid-2022: every other release either side of it names both companies on both services.
Checked, and still not found
No statement explaining the change exists anywhere this desk could locate it, from Rexxie, from HitxLab, from Dvpper Digital, or from Dapper Group. Dapper Group has had public artist disputes before. Seyi Vibez left the company in September 2024, Shallipopi and Muyeez both in December 2024, and T.I Blaze went public with his own complaints in August 2026, all describing bundled management and distribution contracts and withheld catalogue access after they left. None of those dates fit Rexxie’s timeline, which had already changed by mid-2023, so this desk checked for a matching pattern and did not find one. Whether the Dvpper relationship simply ran its contractual term, ended by mutual agreement, or ended in a dispute that never became public is not established, and nothing here should be read as implying any of the three.
The entity behind the HitxLab credit itself is not confirmed either. A search of the UK’s Companies House register for “hitxlab” in any spelling returns zero results. A search of MusicBrainz’s label database returns zero results. Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission has no public search tool this desk could reach, so a Nigerian incorporation could not be checked, confirmed or ruled out. Search-indexed excerpts of a 2020 Nigerian trade report describe a separate company, Hitxlab Entertainment, running a production camp with Rexxie, naming one Alao Abdulkabir Abiola as its managing director, but the report’s own host blocked this desk’s direct request, so that detail is relayed here as unverified, not established, and is not used to say who controls the phonogram-credit name.
A second company worth naming, and what it does not prove
Africori’s own branded smart-link domain hosts working promotional pages for a run of Rexxie releases, and that run spans both sides of the 2023 break: “KPK” from 2020, “A True Champion” from 2021 and “NO MORE CONDITION” from 2022 all resolve, as do 2025’s “BIG VYBZ” and “Focus.” One early release, “Afro Streets,” returns a dead link. Reading the page source behind those links settles what they actually are: white-label infrastructure built by the promotional-link company Feature.fm, the kind of landing page a distributor, a manager or an artist’s own team can spin up for a release in minutes. A working smart link is evidence someone built a page. It is not evidence of who presses, delivers or owns the recording behind it.
Warner Music Group’s own newsroom, naming Adam Tiran as Africori’s General Manager in June 2026, states that he has been “managing high-profile projects and collaborations for artists including Blxckie, Focalistic, Kelvin Momo, Jux, Marioo, Master KG, Rexxie and Sjava.” That sentence puts Rexxie’s name in a Warner-owned company’s own announcement. It does not say Africori distributes him, licenses anything from him, or has ever signed him, and no other document checked says so either. Africori’s own editorial site covers one of his 2021 collaborations in a roundup post, naming no deal and mentioning neither HitxLab nor Dvpper anywhere on the page. A search result describing a 2026 Rexxie YouTube upload as carrying “distribution by Africori” could not be checked against the actual page: YouTube’s description text would not render through any method available to this desk, so that specific claim is not relied on here.
What this means for artists
The lesson in Rexxie’s catalogue is not about Africori, which this record cannot connect to him beyond a handful of promotional links. It is about what a distribution credit actually is and is not. For four years, every release he put out told the public, through DSP metadata rather than through any announcement, that a named Lagos distributor stood behind it. Then that line went quiet, just as quietly as it had arrived, on the same album, eight months apart. No press release marked either end.
For an independent artist or a small label, a distributor credit on Apple Music or Deezer is not a contract, a public record, or a reversion clause. It is whatever string the distributing account typed into a metadata field at the time of upload, and it can disappear from a catalogue just as easily as it appeared, without either party owing the public, or in cases like this one, even each other, an explanation. Anyone relying on a DSP credit line to establish who distributes a catalogue, for due diligence, for a sync licence, or for a catalogue sale, should treat it as a starting point for questions rather than as the answer, and ask the artist or the imprint directly for the actual agreement before citing the credit as settled fact.
