The tags
Don Jazzy: “It’s Don Jazzy again”
The tag has moved with him. Wande Coal used a version on “Taboo,” and on Rema’s 2021 single “Bounce,” which Don Jazzy produced, the opening ad-lib asks, “Na who do the beat?” and answers, “Jazzy!” The NATIVE’s writer admitted it made him scrunch his face the first time, not from disapproval but from nostalgia for the Mo’ Hits years, when “It’s Don Jazzy again!” was everywhere.[5][7]
Don Jazzy’s own account is short and casual, and the clip is worth hearing for the delivery alone. The origin rests on his memory; he didn’t name the Scott Storch song.[3]
Rema and London: “Anotha banga”
Rema’s line usually shares the opening with a producer’s tag. “Calm Down” plays two tags back to back (play: Rema and Selena Gomez, “Calm Down,” official video: “Vibez,” then “Another banger”): Andre Vibez’s “Vibez,” then Rema’s.[8] The “Vibez” tag on this recording was voiced by VTG vocalist Baybee T, whose client reel includes “Calm Down.” On “Soundgasm,” DJ Mag noted, the voice before “another banger” says “London,” the name of the producer who made the beat.[2]
London, who also produced Rema’s “Ozeba,” told On The Radar that his tag is the last thing he adds (play: London on adding his tag to Rema’s “Ozeba”): “There’s no beat complete without adding the tag.”[9]
Sarz: from “Beats by Sarz” to “Riddim”
Sarz changed a famous tag in mid-career. He dropped his ubiquitous “Beats by Sarz” for “a bulbous pronunciation of ‘riddim,’” as The NATIVE put it, and every song on his 2019 beat tape, Sarz Is Not Your Mate, contains the word.[5]
His influence shows up in other people’s tags, too: Kel-P credits him with advice on his,[10] and P.Priime came up through Sarz’s academy.[8]
Kel-P: “It’s Kel-P vibes”
Kel-P met Sarz in 2016 and spent about eight months under his guidance. Sarz “helped me in creating a song that I was working on at the time and even gave me pointers on my producer tag,” Kel-P told OkayAfrica.[10]
The result promises a mood rather than a name alone. The NATIVE describes Kel-P as having attached his work to “party-starting vibes.”[5] Notjustok writes the tag with three s’s, “It’s Kel P vibesss,” which is closer to how it sounds.[11]
Young Jonn: “the wicked producer”
Some producers add a phrase to their name to give it personality. Young Jonn “designated himself ‘the wicked producer,’” The NATIVE wrote.[5]
The tag outlasted the job title. He has since become a singer, and a 2023 interview with him still went out under the title “The Wicked Producer Turned Musician.” The conversation opens on the tag: it is the host’s first memory of him.[12]
Spellz: Burna Boy says his name
Spellz, who produced two of Burna Boy’s earliest hits, “Don Gorgon” and “Check and Balance,”[13] has one of the simplest tags, his name, and the voice carries it. The NATIVE singled out “Burna Boy’s elastic enunciation of his name,” stretched to “spellzzz,” as a tag that “has yet to lose its lustre.”[5]
Hip-hop producers use the same trick, from Mustard’s YG to Metro Boomin’s Future: a producer’s name lands harder in a star’s voice.
Niphkeys and Rexxie: a tag that still got overlooked
Tags don’t always win the argument. Early in 2021 The NATIVE’s writer was in a car when someone played Naira Marley’s “Koleyewon,” and two passengers started hailing Rexxie for the beat. The producer was Niphkeys, and his tag opens the song.[5] The two tags don’t even sound alike: Niphkeys’ is his name in a woman’s voice; Rexxie’s is “Yo Rexxie pon this one!”[11]
Telz: “Funkula”
Telz broke out with five production credits on Burna Boy’s 2020 album Twice As Tall, and his tag did a lot of the introducing.[14] The word doesn’t mean anything; OkayAfrica called it “unmeaning yet simply rhythmic.” Telz himself credits PrettyboyDO’s “Wetin You Smoke,” featuring Olamide, where many people first heard it at the top of a hit, with spreading his name so fast.[14] After the album came out, Twitter joked that it sounded like “porn killer,” a mix-up that, The NATIVE noted, made the tag even better known.[5]
Pheelz: one tag for each job
Pheelz used to announce himself as “Pheelz Mr Producer!” and later switched to a new tag, which Notjustok spells “Riddimahcoolayo.”[11] He explained the two names to Cool FM in 2020. Rii is the producer story, and Pheelz is the musician, songwriter and singer: “one person telling two stories at the same time.” If you hear Rii, he made the record for someone else.[15]
Magicsticks: “the king of sounds and blues”
Asake’s run of hits from 2022 made Magicsticks’ tag, “Tune in to the king of sounds and blues,” familiar.[8] It wasn’t his first. All through school he used an older tag in what he calls “a very urban DJ style.” A friend made the new one when he outgrew it, and his reason was commercial: “I think if I want to attract more markets, I need to like come up with something different.”[16]
How we chose
This is an editorial selection, not a measured ranking. We included tags that are familiar from hit records and that have a documented story: the producer’s own words where we could find them, otherwise contemporary reporting from Nigerian music publications. Many good tags, including Leriq’s “It’s Leriq, call the paramedic,” Killertunes’ “Shabalistica” and Sess’s “problem,”[5] are left out only because we couldn’t document more than the words. We don’t name voices that the producers haven’t confirmed.
For the American side of the story, see the stories behind hip-hop’s greatest producer tags and our history of the producer tag. VoiceTagGods, which publishes this blog, records tags for producers; its vocalists are here.