Shallipopi’s Catalogue Moved From Dapper Music to Sony’s Since ’93 in March 2025. His August 2026 Dispute Names Virgin Music Group Instead.

When Shallipopi told the public in August 2026 that his catalogue had been moved into a Virgin Music Group arrangement without his knowledge, he was describing a company that does not appear anywhere on the copyright lines of his own music. What those lines actually show is a different, quieter transaction: since March 2025, his recordings have carried a phonogram credit for Since ’93, the Sony-backed London label also home to Tems, under an exclusive license from his own company, Plutomania Records.

That is the deal this record establishes, and it is worth separating from the louder dispute Shallipopi, T.I Blaze and Seyi Vibez have been conducting on X against Dapper Music since mid-August 2026. This record does not rule on whether Dapper Music mishandled Shallipopi’s money before he left. It answers a narrower, checkable question: where did his catalogue actually go afterward, and who owns it now.

What the credits show, release by release

Shallipopi signed to Dapper Music & Entertainment in 2023 and released his debut album, Presido La Pluto, that November. Its Apple Music phonogram line reads “Plutomania Records / Dapper Music & Entertainment, Under Exclusive license to Dvpper Digital Ltd,” naming Dapper’s in-house distributor as the licensee. The same credit, word for word, appears on his 2024 album Shakespopi and on “Order,” his November 2024 single with Olamide, a full month after the date he later gave for his exit.

The break shows up on the next release. “Laho,” put out on 13 March 2025, carries a new line: “Since 93 under exclusive license from Plutomania Records Ltd.” Read that phrasing carefully, because the direction of the license is the entire story. Plutomania Records, Shallipopi’s own company, is named as the party granting the license. Since ’93 is the licensee. That is the reverse of the Dapper-era credit, where Dapper’s companies held the rights and Shallipopi’s own label sat second in the line.

The same Since ’93/Plutomania credit recurs on “Laho II” with Burna Boy in April 2025, “Laho III” with Rauw Alejandro that July, and his second studio album, Auracle, released 5 December 2025. Four releases across nine months, all consistent. This publication independently queried MusicBrainz’s rights registry for the “Laho” release, which returns Since ’93 as the sole label of record, matching the DSP credit rather than contradicting it.

Where the “Virgin” claim comes from, and where it doesn’t appear

Nowhere in that trail, from November 2023 through December 2025, does Virgin Music Group’s name appear on a phonogram credit. Virgin Music Group is a real, active distributor in Nigeria: it opened a Lagos office in 2024 and its early African deals included Dvpper, Dapper’s own distribution arm, among others. That is very likely the actual thread connecting Virgin to this story: not a direct deal with Shallipopi, but a distribution relationship between Virgin and the company he was trying to leave. His own public claim conflates the two.

None of this proves Shallipopi is wrong about what he was shown or asked to sign behind the scenes. Artists frequently sign agreements that never surface publicly, and a private-side letter naming Virgin could exist without ever appearing in a DSP credit. But as a matter of what the public record now shows about who has actually been releasing his music since March 2025, it is Since ’93 and Plutomania Records, not Virgin.

What Since ’93 actually is, and what this deal is not

Since ’93 is not a Virgin entity. It is a joint venture inside Sony Music’s RCA Label Group UK, founded by Riki Bleau and Glyn Aikins, with three associated companies on the UK register, Since 93 Ltd, Since 93 Records Ltd and Since 93 Publishing Ltd, all filed at the same London address. This publication has previously verified Since ’93’s role as RCA’s co-signing partner on Tems’s masters, where the credit line names RCA Records/Since 93’ as the rights holder outright.

Shallipopi’s arrangement reads differently, and the difference matters. Tems’s 2021 signing put her masters directly under RCA and Since ’93’s ownership, per Sony’s own announcement at the time. Shallipopi’s credit line keeps Plutomania Records as the naming party and licenses Since ’93 in underneath it, structurally closer to a label-services or marketing-and-distribution arrangement than an outright signing, though no contract is public and this cannot be confirmed as the deal’s legal form. What the credit does establish is that Plutomania Records, not Since ’93 and not Virgin, is the company presenting itself as rights holder on every release since March 2025.

Two things could not be established and are not claimed here. First, no financial terms for the Since ’93 arrangement are public: no advance, no royalty split, no term length. Second, Plutomania Records Ltd does not appear in a UK Companies House search, unlike Since ’93’s three registered entities, so its incorporation and ownership structure could not be independently verified through that register. Nigeria’s corporate register, the CAC, has no public search tool, so a Nigerian incorporation for Plutomania could not be checked either. If Plutomania is Nigerian-registered, that would explain the UK search coming back empty; it would not resolve who controls the company.

What this means for artists

The lesson here is not really about Shallipopi and Dapper. It is about what a phonogram credit is and is not. A “℗” line is a distributor-facing statement about who is being paid to have released the record, not a verified legal filing, and DSPs publish whatever the delivering party tells them to. But it is also the one piece of the puzzle that updates in near real time and is checkable by anyone, which makes it more useful than either side’s public statements in a dispute like this one. When an artist says a catalogue moved to Company X and the credit line says Company Y, that gap is worth investigating rather than taking either claim at face value.

For artists negotiating their own exits, the direction of the license language in Shallipopi’s new credit, “Since 93 under exclusive license from Plutomania,” is the detail worth learning to read. It is the difference between a distributor renting access to your masters and a label owning them outright. Getting that clause changed is, in practical terms, more valuable than most of what gets negotiated in the rest of a recording contract, and it is exactly the clause that does not show up in a headline.

Read next: Afrobeats Wire’s reporting on the underlying Dapper Music dispute and the contract pattern across four artists who have left the company.