The back of the album
When NOMADINHO: 4TH PRIME landed on 16 October, most of us went straight to the features. Asake twice, Victony, Ruger, Monochrome, TML Vibez, Igwe Aka. I went to the back cover, because Chocolate City did something I wish every label did as standard and printed the whole team: writers, producers, backing vocalists, engineers, A&R, the creative director and the executive producers.
Put that together with the streaming credits and you get 42 people for 15 songs.
The names that stopped me
10ten, Chocolate City's head of A&R, is credited three times. He steered the album, recorded the sessions with Auxxie and still sang on IKEBE 3000 and MAZZA. Jaylon mixed and mastered it on his own. The rapper A-Q sits on the A&R team under his government name, Gilbert A-Q Bani.
My favourite credit is on SAMPLE EKWE, where Sunday Osakuni, the Stereo Man behind the original "Sample Ekwe", is listed as a writer. Our industry borrows from the 2000s all the time, and the people who made those songs rarely see their names again. Here, the man who made the hook gets the credit.
Why I want more of this
Streaming apps show some of these names and leave others out. The backing vocalists, the A&R team and the creative director exist only on that back cover image, which will scroll off the timeline in a week. Somebody building a career as an engineer or an A&R in Lagos needs that credit to live somewhere people can find it.
So this is my ask to every label and every artist reading: put the full credits where the music lives, and keep posting the back cover too. Until then, Team Sheet will keep collecting them.
Back of the Album
The full team sheet for NOMADINHO: 4TH PRIME is on our Instagram.