As Phyno continues to dominate the local rap scene, more and more people are beginning to ask whether the Beast from the East is content with the 4 corners of his home country or if he has his sights set on a world even farther west of Lagos – the Western World.

I initially thought that the Enugu-bred MC belonged to the same school of thought as MI Abaga and Olamide (his close friend) that says that, if a Nigerian superstar keeps making jamming ass music their own way, the world will eventually come to them, they don’t have to go to the world.  So when I heard these lines on arguably the hardest rap song of 2016, “Best Rapper”, I felt that the message of self-sufficiency was loud and clear from Phyno:

I no ebe i na acho worldwide stage (You’re there looking for the worldwide stage)

E lose wo the local stage (But you lose the local stage)

Still won’t be called international

Amam na eziokwu na afu ufu but don’t take this personal (I know the truth is painful but don’t take this personal)

At that time, those lines also felt like words of caution to Phyno’s colleagues who were sacrificing dominance at home for international exposure. But interestingly, on the same Playmaker album where he made his feelings on international crossovers known, Phyno planted the first seeds of his own by working with a little-known US-based singer/songwriter by the name of DeCarlo and borrowing some of Mr. Eazi’s international appeal on the worldly  “I’m a Fan” record.

I wonder if he regrets that decision now.

A couple of weeks ago, Pia Mia, a Guam-American singer, released her newest single “I’m a Fan” featuring Jeremih. Besides having the same title and premise, the song’s chorus and first verse was a nearly line-by-line copy of Phyno’s version released months earlier.

Pandemonium ensued, Phyno entered into a back and forth with Pulse NG who wrote a report siding with Pia Mia, allegations the rapper refuted more than once. But only a few hours ago, DeCarlo issued a statement that sided with Pia Mia as well, and cast fresh doubts over Phyno’s side of the story.

According to the statement:

“I wrote the original demo of “I’m A Fan” and pitched it to various artists. I worked with Pia Mia and Jeremih on the track, and their song is the only version authorized.

But in an amazing twist of events, just this evening, Phyno played a potential checkmate when he posted screenshots of a WhatsApp conversation between DeCarlo and himself, where the American songwriter gushed about working with him and committed to doing more work  together, even for free.

Advantage: Phyno. However, when he says ‘authorized’ in his official statement, DeCarlo might be playing a clever game of semantics to say the record wasn’t official cleared and there’s no proper paperwork for its release. But whatever is the case, he cannot claim that Phyno did not at least inform him that the contentious song will be on his Playmaker album. That press release from DeCarlo felt strategic, but now that we’ve heard from both sides, this is where it gets into ‘what we think we know’ territory.

DeCarlo wasn’t credited at all on Pia Mia’s version of “I’m a Fan” – even though he is laying claim to the record, Smash David and Yung Burg (a.k.a Hit Maka) were official credited as producer and co-producer. That makes us suspect that the confusion wasn’t only on Phyno and DeCarlo’s side, the people who can really clear the air are DeCarlo, Smash David and Hit Maka.

DeCarlo either belongs to or used to belong to Hit Maka’s LA-based songwriter/producer camp called Right Now Sound but it seems like that relationship has broken down. How do we know? We don’t, we are just speculating. Hitmaka hasn’t responded to our enquiries to make a comment and neither has Smash David. However, just over a week ago, the former rapper sat down for a 2 hour + interview with Joe Budden and shouted out his entire team multiple times, including Smash David, but he somehow failed to mention DeCarlo even once.

 

Are we reading too much into it? Was it an honest omission or has DeCarlo moved on? And if he has, how amicable was the separation? Does DeCarlo have a credibility issue? Who’s truly behind this “I’m A Fan” record and why was DeCarlo not officially credited on Pia’s version?

We still have questions but I do not think the answers are with Phyno and Pia Mia, if anything the two of them are increasingly beginning to look like innocent bystanders in an internal war between songwriters – they just so happen to be caught by stray bullets. But it’s also obvious that, in not getting the proper paperwork done, Phyno’s naivety on these kind of transactions was exposed.

The whole thing has been messy and uncoordinated and I can’t help but wonder if, in hindsight, Phyno wishes he had stuck to the River Nigers and Lagos Lagoons he was used to, rather than chasing American waterfalls.