BNXN, Cruel Santino & the importance of artist name trademarks
A previously neglected area of the music business in Nigeria
Around this time three years ago, BNXN, the artist formerly known as Buju was beginning to infiltrate ears and turn heads with his distinct, folk-tinged voice. As his stock rose and singles like the Zlatan-assisted “Spiritual” and “L’enu” brought him closer to the mainstream, the singer, was consistent in clarifying the source of his stage name: It was an abbreviation for “Beauty underneath just understood,” an expression that meant a lot to him. The reason for the clarification was glaring, since anyone could’ve concluded that he wilfully and liberally borrowed the moniker from popular Jamaican reggae/dancehall artist, Buju Banton.
Earlier this year, the man born Daniel Benson announced that his stage name going forward would now be the latter half of his government name, stylised as BNXN. There were no public explanations, and no philosophical reasons as to why he changed his stage name away from one that clearly meant a lot to him. While it may have very well been a straightforward artistic choice, the music industry hallways are always buzzing with spicier reports on these sorts of decisions. In this case, the speculation is that the Nigerian singer formerly known as Buju reached the awareness of Buju Banton and his team, after it became news that he would be serving as an opening act on Jamaican superstar Koffee’s next world tour.
You might wonder, why would it bother a renowned Jamaican artist that his moniker is very similar to that of a burgeoning Nigerian artist? The answer is a two-fold reason that merges into one very strong argument: We live in a highly connected, globalised world, and the legality of an artist’s name is a unique feature. In terms of the former, it’s now trite to say streaming and social media has broadened the reach artists can aspire to, from local fame to worldwide recognition, a trajectory BNXN has been on with each solo release and feature-killing appearance. It’s the story of Nigerian pop music these days, where nascent artists are quickly exposed to audiences beyond boundaries and continent-separating oceans.
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“It’s not just about the name, it’s the brand equity that comes with the name.”
With the upcoming Koffee tour, Daniel Benson might have been Buju to many new listeners, but to other listeners outside the African continent, he was effectively affecting the knowledge and prominence of Buju Banton, which leads to the other side of the argument. When these instances such as BNXN occur, there’s legal provision that helps protect that uniqueness and everything that comes with it. “Trademark, in general, is the aspect of intellectual property law that protects brand equity,” Oyinkansola Fawehinmi, a Lagos-based lawyer and music executive popularly known to insiders as “Foza,” tells The NATIVE. “It’s not just about the name, it’s the brand equity that comes with the name.”
Trademark is a precept applicable to any and everything with a distinct attached value. Names, logos, and colours, can be protected under trademark law, with the affiliated persons or entities owning exclusive use as long as these features are registered to them. This level of control plays a huge role not just as a means of stamping identity, but also within the very broad concept of branding. Every brand has a perception they want to create and an image they want to project, in addition to the services they offer, which makes distinct features like names and logos quite significant. Trademark prevents any copycats from gaining off the value attached to these features, making them recognisable and solely attributable to their owners.
As everyone with the faintest knowledge of the music business will tell you, an artist is a brand. Since names are important in the base level of brand identity, trademarks are an integral part of the music business. In Nigeria’s developing music industry, where due process isn’t always kindly received, trademarks aren’t being widely used just yet. “It’s kind of something we’ve been saying for a while now but people don’t really pay attention, because the posture in Nigeria to trademark and IP in general is quite lukewarm,” Foza explains of the parochial situation. “A lot of people have just neglected this thing over the years and no real action has been taken.”
Well, it looks like the days of zero consequences are winding down. Amidst the 2020 lockdown, the Nigerian experimental artist now known as Cruel Santino revealed that he had to lengthen his moniker following a strong request from a Spanish artist with whom he shared his previous stage name, Santi. Formerly known as Ozzy B, the artist had made the previous moniker change while undergoing an artistic rebirth that saw him move from rap lyricist to outré, fusion leanings. But this moment was different given that the name was inspired by his obsession with American genre-mashing singer/rapper Santigold, making the nominal situation with the Spanish artist Santi an honest coincidence.
These days, most Cruel Santino fans still refer to him by that immediate, previous moniker, mainly because it’s a shortened version of the current one. However, the change underlines the real implications of using a trademarked entity when it’s not registered to you. It’s also interesting that the change happened after ‘Mandy & the Jungle’, the 2019 debut album that increased Cruel Santino’s notoriety in the U.S. and across Europe, which may have caught the attention of the Spanish artist Santi and/or their reps, and ultimately enforced the change. “Even if your local situation isn’t as stringent, you have to be more responsible in the global age,” Foza says.
Within the context of music globalisation, though, it doesn’t mean name trademarks aren’t globally binding. That an artist registers their name as a trademark in Nigeria doesn’t mean it automatically translates in the UK, or even any other African country for that matter. According to Foza, it’s advisable that Nigerian artists locally trademark their stage names as soon as they’re certain of their path, regardless of their popularity. As they begin to grab more attention and based on future projections, they should start the process in other international territories.
“What we usually recommend is, there are some treaties that allow you to do one singular registration and you’re protected in Europe in general or America in general,” Foza explains. “Africa doesn’t have a central trademark thing going on, so you have to go to each country to register your trademark. So, if you’re an artist that’s starting out in Nigeria, what we usually advise is that you register in Nigeria and as your audience grows, we usually recommend you register in the UK because it’s very receptive to Afrobeats. If you see or feel that in the next 2 to 3 years, your band is going to grow into something exponential, you register in America.”
It’s sound advice, considering that even in more diligent music ecosystems, name trademarks are still disputed over. In 2020, the country music band formerly known as Lady Antebellum sued the American blues/soul singer Lady A over nominal rights, after the band decided to remove the “ntebellum” part of their stage name, due to its ties with slavery, following the wave of civil rights protests in the wake of George Floyd’s brutal murder at the hands of police officers. After the band announced their name change, it became wider news that there was an artist who had been recording and performing under that moniker for over two decades. Both acts filed lawsuits against each other, and eventually settled earlier this year, but the dominance of the band on web search engines and streaming search tabs proves the importance of outright, legal ownership of a registered trademark.
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The semantics of registering a trademark are slightly more complex than picking a name. For example, “you can’t register your natural name, except that you’ve built so much clout with that name,” Foza tells me towards the end of our conversation via WhatsApp call. “Even someone like Beyoncé, she had to use the apostrophe to distinguish it. You can’t register state names, location names and the like; the other thing to it is maybe changing the spelling, changing the logo, changing how it’s written. So, even BNXN isn’t spelt the regular Benson, because naturally you can’t trademark that because it’s a lot of people’s name.”
Further, trademarks work in classes, meaning that a feature is only peculiar to a person or entity in each class it is registered. If an artist registers their name in the entertainment services class, that name can be used by someone else in another class. “If you’re registering, say, Foza in the Entertainment services department, it means no one can use Foza as a stage name, as a performing actor, as an actor or whatever it is,” she explains. “However, someone can use Foza in the cooking industry. If I don’t want anyone to use Foza for anything at all, I have to register for each class.”
Trademark is quite nuanced, but it’s quite the imperative endeavour because, as Foza puts it, “anything can blow up.” While BNXN might not have envisaged that his previous moniker would have caused a minor wrinkle in his transition, and Cruel Santino was entirely oblivious of the Spanish artist Santi, they are solid examples of why artist need to invest in the details of what makes them identifiable. Both artists have moved on quite well from these name changes—BNXN is part of the biggest song in Nigeria at the moment and Cruel Santino recently dropped his sophomore album to much conversation—but that sort of smooth transition might not always be possible for every artist that falls into the same situation.
When it comes to trademarks, like they say, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Or as Foza bluntly puts it, “We’re no longer in the era of artists being negligent, you could get away with it before but now you can’t.”
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Maya Amolo Is Committed To Giving You The Sweetest Time
There’s undoubtedly more to come from the talented singer as she looks to solidify herself as one of the...
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Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, Amolo always had an affinity for music. The singer and producer, who took on piano and guitar lessons as a child, has previously credited acts like Brandy, Erykah Badu, Prince, and Kenyan musical icon Eric Wainaina as her early influences – and it’s easy to see how Amolo’s style draws from this strong lineage of musicians whose music is equally expansive, soothing and vulnerable. After years experimenting with different styles, recording covers to beats she ripped from YouTube and posting them on her Soundcloud page, Amolo released her debut project ‘Leave Me At The Pregame’ in 2020.
The EP, which quickly soared up the charts in Kenya, served as a brief but emphatic introduction to Amolo’s minimalistic take on R&B. Standouts like the emotive opener “Puddles,” “Lush Green”, and “Jokes” showcase her clever and poignant lyricism that reflects on themes of love, depression, and self-healing. Along with sparse, melancholic production and the icy sensuality of her voice, Amolo delivered a remarkable debut that made her one of the most promising figures in Nairobi’s alternative music scene. Two years after ‘Leave Me At The Pregame,’ the Kenyan rising star released her debut album, ‘Asali.’
‘Asali,’ which translates to “honey” in her native Kiswahili, showcased Amolo’s progression as both an artist and a human being, as she swapped out the sad-girl tunes that filled her debut EP for more vibrant and intricate records – thanks in part to Sir Bastien and Kenyan producer and rapper Lukorito – that explore themes of growth and the complexities and rich luster of love. The album’s lead singles, “Foundry” and the self-produced “Can’t Get Enough,” found relative success on streaming platforms, placing Amolo as one of the continent’s most exciting new R&B voices. About a year after the release of ‘Asali,’ Amolo updated the album with 8 new songs on a deluxe version that featured Kenyan stars like Bensoul, Xenia Manasseh and Zowie Kengocha.
In August 2024, a few months after she delivered a splendid Colors performance, Amolo released a new project titled ‘What a Feeling.’ The 5-track EP, which essentially serves as an ode to Amolo’s home city, Nairobi, sees her experimenting with an array of dance sub-genres without straying too far from her R&B roots. While the project still retains much of the melancholy and elegance that defined her earlier work, there’s a hypnotic and pulsating energy that courses through ‘What A Feeling,’ that highlights a shift in the singer’s sensibilities. Amolo’s honeyed vocals gently seep through subtle Dancehall, Electronic, R&B and House-inspired production and the accompanying visualizer, a mashup of camcorder footage of her and her friends in Nairobi, also adequately captures the charming and nocturnal vibe of the tape.
The project produced standout tracks like the sensual “Let It Flow,” the title track and “Take It,” which later got remixed by Ugandan singer Soundlykbb and rapper SGawD. With Amolo’s latest release, “Sweetest Girl,” the Kenyan rising star continues her intricate exploration of R&B music, merging it with varying styles to produce her own distinct and refreshing variant. There’s no telling what Amolo might do next, but with only a handful of releases to her name so far, there’s undoubtedly more to come from the talented singer as she looks to solidify herself as one of the genre’s most prominent faces across the continent.
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Over the last few years, street-pop, a guttural version of afropop, has surged to mainstream popularity, birthing stars like Asake, Seyi Vibez, and Shallipopi. On the homefront, a generation of younger stars also put unique spins on the sound. Singer, T.I Blaze, has been a notable star in the sub-genre since his 2021 single, “Sometimes,” and a subsequent remix with icon, Olamide, launched him into a different stratosphere.
Since “Sometimes,” Blaze has established his profile as a reliable source for songs that reflect the pulse of the streets while archiving his come-up story across a debut album (‘El Major’) and three extended plays like ‘The Fresh Prince Of Lagos’ and ‘Dangerous Wavy Baby.’ His 2024 EP, ‘Shakur,’ further underscored his evolution as an artist, featuring slippery numbers about escapism, his thoughts on life in the fast lane, and brotherhood with features from rising stars like Tml Vibez and BhadBoi Oml.
In 2025, the singer has picked up where he left off last year, releasing “Trenches Luv,” a balmy February release that examines the dynamics of romance from his point of view as a young adult moulded by the hard realities of life on the street. The success of “Trenches Luv” has led to a deluxe version of ‘Shakur’ with the singer adding seven new songs to the original version of the project. Impressively, on the new version of the project, TI Blaze taps up Ayo Maff and Ghanaian star Arathejay on “My Brother” and “Mario Remix,” respectively.
Led by a galala-inflected opener, “Track 1,” ‘Shakur (Deluxe)’ is both raw and complex with the singer sounding refreshed on songs like “My Brother,” “Dodge,” and “Introduction.” In many ways, this project is an invitation for listeners to explore the many facets of T.I Blaze’s artistry as well as a portent to celebrate his roots and offer a glimpse at his evolution.
Listen to ‘Shakur (Deluxe)’ here.
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Last Friday, Rigo Kamp, a NATIVE uNder alum and one of the architects of an equal parts nostalgic and refreshing sound released his self-titled debut EP, delivering a propulsive fusion of Alte, R&B, Funk, and Soul-infused rhythms.
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Just last November, Apple Music named Rigo Kamp as its Up Next artist, an acknowledgment that underscored his potential and confirmed what the tastemakers and underground scene already knew. Weeks later, he delivered an exhilarating live set for Spotify Fresh Finds in Lagos, proving he’s just as compelling live as he is in the studio.
On “Marathon”, the refreshing opener to the Rigo Kamp EP, Rigo borrows the bounce and swagger of Afro-Juju legend, Sir Shina Peters’ golden-era, fusing nostalgia with re-imagination to birth a vintage performance that feels like a private party for two, where it’s just Rigo, and you.
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