TunesBid Limited Signed Ayo Maff in December 2023. By November 2024, His Releases Credited OceanStreet Creative and EMPIRE, Not TunesBid.

TunesBid Limited signed Nigerian singer Ayo Maff to an exclusive recording agreement on 3 December 2023. Within five months his commercial releases began carrying a second name in the copyright credit, his own OceanStreet Creative Ltd, and by November 2024, eight months before TunesBid filed a breach-of-contract suit against him, TunesBid had dropped out of the credit line entirely. Every Ayo Maff release checked for this record since then names OceanStreet Creative Ltd and EMPIRE. None names TunesBid.

An exclusive deal, then a shrinking credit line

Ayo Maff, born Ayorinde Mafoluku Ayodele on 18 July 2005 and raised in the Bariga area of Lagos, signed what TunesBid Limited describes as an Exclusive Recording Agreement on 3 December 2023, committing him to deliver a set number of EPs and albums to the label. TunesBid, a Lagos company that launched in February 2021 as a marketplace connecting producers and songwriters to buyers before expanding into artist management, says it funded three early singles under that agreement: Street Anthem, 7 Days and Dealer.

Dealer, a collaboration with Fireboy DML released on 16 April 2024, is the clearest documentary evidence of the arrangement working as described. Its Apple Music phonogram credit reads “℗ 2024 Tunesbid / Ocean street,” naming both companies jointly, four months into the contract.

What follows is where the credit line and TunesBid’s account of an exclusive deal stop matching each other. Ayo Maff’s debut EP, Maffian, released 15 August 2024, carries no company credit at all: “℗ 2024 AYO MAFF.” Three months after that, on 28 November 2024, the single Find Money (feat. Zerrydl) carries a new joint credit, “℗ 2024 OCEANSTREET CREATIVE LTD / EMPIRE,” the American independent distributor. TunesBid does not appear. His debut album, Prince of the Street, released 26 June 2025, carries the same credit: “℗ 2025 OCEANSTREET CREATIVE LTD / EMPIRE.” TunesBid does not appear there either.

The lawsuit TunesBid filed after the credit had already changed

TunesBid did not go public with a dispute until July 2025, roughly eight months after OceanStreet Creative and EMPIRE first replaced it in Ayo Maff’s release credits. In a statement signed by founder and chief executive Precious Okolie, the label said Ayo Maff and his management team had been “secretly negotiating with Empire behind the label’s back,” holding meetings with EMPIRE representatives without TunesBid’s knowledge. TunesBid’s account is specific about what EMPIRE offered: a deal to distribute two of Ayo Maff’s EPs, with an option for an album, including an upfront payment to TunesBid itself. TunesBid’s legal team, led by Zaeda Oracle, filed suit alleging breach of the December 2023 agreement, and the label has since told other companies not to work with Ayo Maff without its approval, saying he remains under contract.

Ayo Maff’s manager, Ayotunde Oyefeso, disputes TunesBid’s version. He says the label never paid the artist a promised ₦100 million advance, structured as four quarterly instalments of ₦25 million, and that the only payment Ayo Maff ever received from TunesBid’s founder personally was ₦100. He also says Fireboy DML, not TunesBid, funded the video for Dealer, and that TunesBid rejected a settlement offer and instead demanded ₦400 million. Both sides agree the relationship deteriorated; neither has produced the underlying contract or a settlement document publicly, and no court ruling has been reported.

What the metadata timeline adds

None of the reporting on the lawsuit fixes a date for when Ayo Maff’s side began working with EMPIRE and OceanStreet Creative. The DSP credit history does. It places the shift in the second half of 2024, specifically between the Maffian EP in August, which named no label at all, and Find Money in late November, which named OceanStreet Creative and EMPIRE for the first time. That is the same four-month window in which, on TunesBid’s own account, Ayo Maff’s camp was in undisclosed talks with EMPIRE. Nothing here proves TunesBid’s characterisation of those talks as a breach; it does establish, independent of either side’s public statements, that the commercial credit on his music had already moved to OceanStreet Creative and EMPIRE well before TunesBid’s lawsuit made the dispute public.

OceanStreet Creative Ltd itself is thinly documented outside these credits. No company registration, ownership filing or standalone press profile for it was found. Nigerian trade coverage of the lawsuit refers to a management entity under closely related but not identical names, OceanStreet Creative Limited in some reports and OceansTreasure Limited in others, which may reflect editorial inconsistency, two related entities, or an error somewhere in the reporting chain. This record treats OceanStreet Creative Ltd as the entity named directly on DSP credits and leaves the naming discrepancy in secondary reporting unresolved.

What is established, and what is not

Established: the 3 December 2023 signing date TunesBid gives for its own agreement with Ayo Maff; the joint TunesBid/Ocean Street credit on Dealer in April 2024; the absence of any label credit on the Maffian EP in August 2024; the first appearance of the OceanStreet Creative/EMPIRE credit on Find Money in November 2024; the same credit on Prince of the Street in June 2025; TunesBid’s July 2025 lawsuit and its specific allegation of undisclosed talks with EMPIRE; and the competing, unresolved financial claims from both camps.

Not established: the terms of the original TunesBid contract, including its length or any advance figure TunesBid itself has confirmed; whether EMPIRE in fact made the two-EP offer with an upfront payment to TunesBid that TunesBid describes, since no statement from EMPIRE on the matter is public; who legally controls the masters to Street Anthem, 7 Days and Dealer, the three releases TunesBid says it funded; and the outcome of the litigation, which no source checked here reports as resolved.

A caveat that cuts against reading too much into the credit line alone: DSP metadata reflects whatever a distributor was told to publish, not a verified legal record of who owns what. A joint TunesBid/Ocean Street credit on Dealer is consistent with TunesBid’s account of a direct working relationship at that point, but it is not a contract, and the shift away from TunesBid by November 2024 is not, on its own, evidence of who was in the right or in breach. It documents what listeners and platforms were shown, on the dates checked, and nothing more.

What this means for artists

Ayo Maff’s catalogue shows how a Nigerian label relationship can visibly unravel in commercial metadata months before either side says anything in public. For artists weighing exclusive agreements with independent labels that fund early singles, the practical lesson is not about who is right in this dispute, it is about how early the credit line can move once a relationship comes under strain, and how long that can run before the label whose name has disappeared even notices publicly. An artist and a funding label can both point to the same handful of songs and describe entirely different relationships; the one thing not in dispute here is which company’s name distributors have actually been printing on new work since November 2024, and it has not been TunesBid’s.