Crayon Says He and Rema Are Done, and Names Mavin as the Reason
Crayon says the loving, playful artist he used to be is gone, and that Mavin buried him, as a six-month silence, a rejected $300,000 offer and a late-night posting spree end his friendship with Rema.
Crayon, the Lagos-born singer whose real name is Charles Chibueze Chukwu, announced on X on Thursday that his friendship with Rema had ended, in a rapid run of posts that also accused Mavin Records of destroying the artist he used to be.
“Me and Rema are no longer friends,” he wrote, adding that he had been hurt “to the last minute” and would not speak on the matter again. Written in a mix of English and Nigerian Pidgin, the posts spread within hours, with one drawing more than 400,000 views.
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Crayon opened the series by asking what had happened to the “old Crayon,” then answered himself in capital letters: Mavin had killed him. He described a loving and playful artist who arrived as an innocent boy from Ojo with the potential to become the greatest of all time, and said he had sold his soul before his breakthrough.
He said Rema had left his messages unanswered for roughly six months, that he had turned down a publishing deal worth $300,000 because he believed it undervalued him, and that Mavin had stifled his true self.
Addressing Rema by his first name, Divine, Crayon told him to rein in the Ravers, the singer’s devoted fan base, whom he compared to headless chickens, and warned of fallout if they did not stop. In another post he said Rema and Tega Oghenejobo, the chief operating officer of Mavin Records, kept poking at him, and that he intended to speak out about it.
A separate, crudely worded post turned on Rema again and brought in Ayra Starr, the Mavin star who joined Crayon on “Ngozi.”
He said he respects her and would never touch her inappropriately, and he complained that a song and video on which, he claimed, millions of dollars were spent did not measure up to that record. What exactly he was accusing Rema of in the post was not clear.
The break is notable because the two were among the most visibly close artists in the Mavin orbit.
Rema, born Divine Ikubor and now 26 years old, joined the label family in 2019 through the Jonzing World imprint. Crayon, now 29 years old, signed that May to Blowtime Entertainment, another Mavin imprint, after the in-house producer Baby Fresh discovered him.
They worked together on “Too Correct,” from Crayon‘s 2021 EP “Twelve A.M.,” and both appeared on Mavin ensemble records such as “Won Da Mo.” A widely shared video showed Rema stacking bundles of cash in Crayon‘s arms on his 24th birthday.
In 2023 interviews, Crayon credited Rema with stepping in during a struggle with addiction that ended with his admission to a psychiatric hospital.
“Ngozi,” produced by Sarz and released in July 2023 on Crayon‘s album “Trench to Triumph,” remains one of his biggest records, and its video has passed six million views on YouTube.
This is not the first time Crayon has aired grievances in public. On March 15, he posted that Mavin was “going down,” told Rema there would be no collaboration for the next 100 years and said Rema had stolen his star.
He claimed the label had earned $200 million without paying him, accused it of delaying his payments to make him suffer, and blamed it for the death of his mother. Many of those posts were deleted, which fed speculation that his account had been compromised, until he later acknowledged they were his, telling a fan “it is what it is.” His single “Baami” had by then been released under a new imprint, Olodum Entertainment, without Mavin‘s branding, alongside a new booking email, which many read as confirmation that he had left the label.
His mother, Evelyn Chukwu, died on July 4 last year, days before his birthday, and he called it the darkest day of his life. Some fans have linked the intensity of his posts to that loss.
Mavin and its founder, Don Jazzy, did not publicly answer the March posts. In May, Don Jazzy said, without naming anyone, that sidelining artists would be “like throwing money away.”
The producer Samklef weighed in at the time, suggesting a pattern among artists who leave the label and tying its struggles to Don Jazzy‘s association with the social media figure VeryDarkMan. Crayon later said he was at peace with Don Jazzy and called him family.
Fans remain divided. Some defended Rema, pointing to his history of supporting Crayon, while others sided with Crayon, citing his claims over pay and his grief. Rema, Ayra Starr, Tega Oghenejobo and Mavin Records had not commented publicly at the time of writing.
