The row between Teni and Shizzi, her former record label boss started as a big joke and then took an unexpected catastrophic turn. Everybody knows Teni, but not many people know that Shizzi has been in the industry for over a decade and had worked with Davido and even Wizkid before they became famous
How it all began
Teni innocently tweeted, “Users have no pity, they’ll use you and feel no remorse, don’t let that crown shift. Walk away.”
It didn’t take long for Shizzi—who discovered the artist and signed her before she found fame—saw it and replied saying “Oh you don dey feel am? Them don dey serve you breakfast already? See who’s talking about users. You who took a song that I produced with you ‘Case’ and you went and gave your in-house producer to reproduce it without my consent and you released the song and your guy ‘Nurse Dolor’ endorsed it with no remorse till today. you’re talking about users. Nah stop it!”
It would have been better for humanity if that exchange had ended there, but it was only just starting.
Teni fired back, telling Shizzi that he wanted to waste her life, that he signed her with no plan and was giving her songs away. She then proceeded to inform him that if not that she walked away peacefully, she would still be singing on the streets of Atlanta. She then dared Shizzi to produce the music stem if he is telling the truth.
At this point, Shizzi replied, asking her if her career benefited from his creation of the song “Case” which she ‘took to someone else to reproduce.’ He claimed that the reason he was letting sleeping dogs lie was because Teni’s mum had already called him to sue for peace.
Teni was still not having it. She asked Shizzi to drop the stem of the song. She asked him not to just respond with a picture, but that he should play the sound with her voice in it since he claims he produced it.
At this point, Shizzi countered saying that he created the song idea from scratch and that it doesn’t matter if vocals were recorded the same day or not and that he was neither given the credit nor paid for its creation.
How it ended
At this point, Shizzi threatened that he’d ask Sony to take down the song. Shizzi’s wife, Samklef and many others have since weighed in and accusations and counter accusations have been flying in different directions.
While people break away from their record labels all the time, full-blown exchange of words in public glare is not something you see every day.
An earlier version of the song obtained by Quest sounds pretty similar to the popular version that we all know.
Is this enough to leave a major negative mark on Teni’s career, given that the Nigerian music industry has been said over and again to be a walled garden closely guarded by gatekeepers? It remains to be seen.
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