Ayodele Basil popularly known as Del B is a Nigerian Sound engineer, record producer and songwriter. He is renowned for hit singles like Wizkid “Craving”, “On Top Your Matter “ and “Kind Love”, Flavour “Shake“ , KCee “Pull Over“ , Runtown “Mad Over You“, “ Energy” and “Bend Down Pause”. He was the mixing and mastering engineer for Dbanj’s smash hit single “Why Me“.
Between 2015 – 2016, Del B produced two monster hit singles for Runtown titled “Bend Down Pause“ ft Wizkid and “Mad Over You”. The songs would go on to generate over 100 million streams across all platforms.
Bend Down Pause has over 13 million views on YouTube and Mad Over You has over 134 million views on YouTube, being one of the few Nigerian songs to cross the 100 million views mark on YouTube .
Mad Over You became a smash hit ruling the airwaves in 2016 and becoming a proper monster hit in 2017. The song was everywhere on the radio, tv stations, social media and streaming platforms, topping charts across the continent of Africa.
The song is also referred to as pioneering the pon pon sound that was the mainstream Nigerian music style in 2017. “Mad Over You“ was nominated for Headies Song of the year in 2018 and Del B was nominated for producer of the year.
However, despite the resounding success of the singles, Del B production advance had not been paid and he didn’t get a dime from the royalties on the songs despite producing and contributing to the compositions inherent in the musical works.
Runtown was signed to the Okwudili Umenyiora aka Dilly led EricMany Entertainment at the time the musical works were produced, recorded and released.
The label neglected to pay the producer a production advance for Bend Down Pause, which caused a rift between himself and the artist, who promised the label would fix the error before the release of the monster hit Mad Over You. Mad Over You was however leaked supposedly by label personnel.
This got the music to go around without signing contracts and due licensing of the instrumental composition, or paying the producer his full advance fees. The producer was unable to get a contractual structure in order to exploit his contributions on the songs for financial gains not untill he got a lawyer onboard.
Del B slammed the label with a One Hundred Million Naira suit for unpaid production advance and non payment of royalties on “Mad Over You“ and “Bend Down Pause“. Runtown was also sued along his label.
We believe other creatives can learn from the situation and ensure proper contracts are in place before, during and after the production process to avoid stories like this.
As a producer, ensure you have all things in place to protect your catalogue and ensure you enjoy the proceeds of your hard work.
As an artiste (whether signed or unsigned), ensure everyone involved in the production process gets what is due to them and that all documentation are in place. We believe Del B has also been sorted as at the time of writing this report and everything due to him has been settled.