Monster Boy
Cruel Santino's own record label, and his 2020-2022 joint venture partner with Interscope Records, the first such deal between a major label and a Nigerian artist.
- Based in
- Not established
- Founder
- Cruel Santino (Osayaba Andrew Ize-Iyamu)
Monster Boy is the record label and recording-rights vehicle of Nigerian artist Cruel Santino (Osayaba Andrew Ize-Iyamu). Catalogue metadata names it as sole phonogram owner on his releases from 2018 through at least February 2025, and press has described it as a collective that also includes producers GMK and Genio Bambino, though no corporate officer beyond Cruel Santino himself is documented anywhere.
Between 2020 and roughly 2022, Monster Boy operated as a joint venture with Interscope Records, a Universal Music Group label. Skopemag’s announcement and Rolling Stone’s later profile of Cruel Santino both describe it as the first such joint venture between a major label and a Nigerian artist, covering his 2020 EP End Of The Wicked and the 2022 album Subaru Boys: FINAL HEAVEN. Interscope’s name drops out of the release credits by late 2023, after which Monster Boy continues alone.
No registration has been found for Monster Boy under UK or Nigerian company records, and its ownership and legal domicile remain undocumented beyond Cruel Santino’s own authorship. The phonogram credit stops appearing on his catalogue after February 2025 and is replaced from August 2026 by a different named entity, Candles Media Production Limited; no source explains the transition.