Despite famously singing \u201cI\u2019m in love with plenty women\u201d, Rema reports having no current romantic interests or any room in his life for dating at all. \u201cI don\u2019t have time for it, I have a world to take,\u201d the 22-year-old says in an accent which seems to straddle Benin City and Atlanta. When you consider that his career is taking off, it\u2019s no surprise.<\/p>\n
When we speak over a video call in June, the golden child of Afropop is resting after a heavy week of shows in Oslo and Geneva, and gearing up for a performance at London\u2019s Wireless festival in Finsbury Park. In September, Rema will perform his debut solo UK concert in London before setting off on a tour of the rest of the UK and Europe. Artists have greater creative licence when staging their own shows and this prospect excites him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s full-on Rema,\u201d he says, his soft, low, humming voice breaking into bold intonation. \u201cIt\u2019s big for me, it\u2019s always been a dream. I feel like my fans out here in the UK, they have wanted this for a long while. I\u2019m glad I\u2019m going to be able to bring my own ideas and carry my full team on stage, including my band, because sometimes it\u2019s hard with all these festivals, based on the fact they have a lot of artists and need to make provisions for a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Born Divine Ikubor, Rema grew up in Benin City, the capital of the fallen Benin Empire now located in Edo State, present-day Nigeria. Benin City has a rich history, famed for its bronzes, earthworks and powerful obas (rulers), but also for its varied religions, a feature which, Rema says, persists today. He notes how Benin \u2014 which he correctly pronounces \u201cBini\u201d \u2014 is deeply spiritual. \u201cIt\u2019s a place in Nigeria where the traditional rule holds more ground than the government,\u201d he tells me. \u201cThere is huge diversity of religion. There are small communities with their own twist to the Benin language. Everyone knows each other, but everyone doesn\u2019t know each other. It\u2019s the culture which brings people together.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also describes Benin as a place that is \u201cfearful\u201d of change, but which endowed him with a rich, intense education that he only became aware of once he left. Although he speaks nostalgically of growing up in the city, Rema left the capital for Ghana when he was 17 years old. \u201cThings were tough in Benin,\u201d he explains, \u201cI had to find bread for my family. I ran away from home because we were facing a lot of issues and I had to make ends meet.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is reluctant to detail the problems that affected his family, but in 2008, his father, Justice, a politician in Nigeria\u2019s People\u2019s Democratic Party (PDP), was found dead in a hotel room in circumstances that are still unknown. This loss brought financial pressures for the family. In 2020, Rema called the party out, saying, \u201cPDP, y\u2019all need to explain what happened to my father in that hotel room. Justice Ikubor\u2019s son has risen.\u201d In the same year, Rema spoke out about his older brother dying years earlier due to negligence in the Nigerian healthcare system. Their deaths left him as \u201cthe only man, needing to do something\u201d, so he relocated to Ghana. Taking a break from music, he carried out hard labour.<\/p>\n
Such turmoil would curtail the aspirations of even the toughest person, which makes it all the more remarkable that Rema has made such a success of himself and become a global name. With messianic zeal and gratitude, Rema reflects on the \u201ctiming\u201d of his \u201ccome up\u201d, sharing that \u201cGod made it happen now, because I am so right for this time\u201d, as we discuss how Nigerian Afrobeats and Afropop music are currently dominating the charts as well as day parties and festivals in the West. At a day party like DLT Brunch, frequented by Black Brits in London, you could expect to hear Rema\u2019s \u2018Bounce\u2019 mixed alongside Wizkid\u2019s \u2018Anoti\u2019, Asake\u2019s \u2018Palazzo\u2019, and Burna Boy\u2019s \u2018Last Last\u2019. It\u2019s enchanting, soulful music which sends hips swinging, booties low, and throws both gun fingers and gospel hands in the air. These are sounds which resonate across the African diaspora for their effortless linguistic blending of English, Yoruba, pidgin and, in Rema\u2019s case, Edo language. And the rapper feels that he\u2019s but one soldier working collaboratively as Afrobeat advances in its cultural domination of the West.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a blessing. And never will I ever carry that competitive mindset,\u201d he asserts. \u201cAll we\u2019re here to do is take our culture and spread it to the world and attract people back to their roots. I\u2019m grateful and I\u2019m really proud of what the legends have done before me, and I\u2019m graced by the fact that I\u2019m also creating a fine ground for the next generation after me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The increased popularity of Afrobeat music, however, does not mean that it is homogeneous \u2014 in fact, Rema is perhaps the truest testament to the diversity of Nigerian music. West African artists frequently encounter interrogations over their genre and comments that their music is \u2018unplaceable\u2019, but Rema has distilled his own sound into what he terms \u201cAfro-rave\u201d. When I ask him to define it, he tells me to wait a moment while he retrieves a note on which he has written the definition. He then reads it aloud: \u201cAfro-rave is my perception of Afrobeats, it\u2019s a sub-genre. It includes the melody, delivery and diversity and its flexibility to maintain its own stance, sound-wise, in any beats pattern and outside Afro. So yeah, that\u2019s Afro-rave.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a genre that wasn\u2019t immediate to the artist, as his journey through musical styles has been varied and plural. Looking back on his youth in Benin City, he remembers that he had neither a musical device of his own nor the money to purchase what he wanted to listen to, so he\u2019d tune into what his family played. \u201cMy mum was big on gospel music, my sister was big on love songs, and also Michael Jackson, Wizkid, R&B, Drake,\u201d he recalls. \u201cMy brother used to listen to rap and Burna Boy and Davido \u2014 so African music. And my dad was big on legends like Osayomore, and also D\u2019Banj and Don Jazzy, Two Face, Fela. So, I literally grew up listening to what everybody listens to.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he began rapping and developing his own melodies as a teenager, he was first attracted to hip-hop, lo-fi music, and also a lot of rock songs that have since imprinted on his own discography. He turned to SoundCloud to be introduced to new forms of music and would \u201clisten to whatever playlist my mood was feeling\u201d. He came across the likes of Daft Punk, Travis Scott and Kid Cudi. \u201cI started to listen to a whole different field of music and started creating my own perspective, and then just kept going on from there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI listen to a lot of alternative music,\u201d he continues. \u201cI don\u2019t know the names [of the artists], some of them just wrote two songs and then just [ghosted]. But when I was growing up, I couldn\u2019t know the words because I didn\u2019t have a device to play off of to know them, so I usually just hummed them, so that\u2019s something which influenced my music because I hum a lot in my songs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Being a rapper, it wasn\u2019t obvious to Rema that he could melt his vocals over an Afrobeat sound, but when he was discovered and offered a record deal by D\u2019Prince in 2018 after his Instagram post freestyling over the singer\u2019s \u2018Gucci Gang\u2019 went viral, Rema was steered towards this style. He now cites this as the \u201copportunity of a lifetime\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me that he likes my voice, and he feels like I\u2019m gonna sound really good on Afrobeat,\u201d says Rema. \u201cI told him I don\u2019t really do Afrobeat, I just rap, so he said, \u2018Give it a try.\u2019 I was like, \u2018This is a mountain I have to climb.\u2019 I kept pushing myself, connecting my influences within. And I made a couple songs and kept going until I found myself, and that\u2019s it. That\u2019s how the Rema sound came out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although his success feels effortless now, Rema wasn\u2019t an overnight sensation \u2014 his achievements have been the result of plenty of trial and error. Today, Rema likens himself to an underdog who has beaten the odds to become venerated and worshipped for his uniqueness. \u201cAt first it was quite funny, a lot of people laughed, a lot of people criticised, but I stood beside it, I kept going, I kept pushing. Right now, that criticism is a blessing to me: I stand out, I\u2019ve distinguished myself. If I don\u2019t drop music for a year, it will be obvious in Africa that something is missing. That\u2019s how bold a statement my sound has made.\u201d<\/p>\n
The infectious Rave & Roses, Rema\u2019s debut album released in March this year, certainly justifies the scale of self-belief. After a 2019 victory lap of three EPs, the full-length record has a youthful, cheeky, sun-dappled, atmospheric quality, conjuring images of boys running around the burnt orange, sandy streets of Nigeria. Much of it introduces listeners to Rema\u2019s life pre-fame, too. On \u2018Runaway\u2019, Rema touches on the pressures of pursuing romantic love in Benin City, where boys are hustling and economic anxieties anchor priorities. \u201cMany get money pass me die \/ But this my baby no dey collect all their bribe\u201d, he sings. Dissecting the meaning of the track, Rema explains: \u201cWhen I was in Benin, there was a standard that everyone had on relationships, and I felt the need to match up with that because at some point in time I\u2019d be doubting myself or she\u2019d be doubting the relationship \u2014 if she\u2019s with the right person and all. And it just caused that paranoia and anxiety, and I felt the need to run away, go somewhere else where we can just create our own narrative of love.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Nigerian artist has created \u201cAfro-rave\u201d, his very own brand of Afrobeats, yet he claims to be merely part of a wider movement to bring African music to the West. As he prepares to stage his debut UK solo show in September, it\u2019s clear that his ambition extends worldwide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12963,"featured_media":16016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,31],"tags":[7,14,32],"class_list":{"0":"post-16019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"category-music","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"yoast_head":"\n