Rema
Biography
Rema, born Divine Ikubor on May 1 2000 in Benin City, Edo State, is one of the most rapidly ascended stars in Nigerian music history, bursting onto the national scene at age eighteen with a debut EP that immediately announced an artist of unusual gifts. Discovered by Don Jazzy and signed to Jonzing World under the Mavin Records umbrella, his self-titled debut EP Rema (2019) contained the track Dumebi which became an immediate Pan-African and international hit, earning him his first major streaming milestone before his twentieth birthday. His musical sound — a genre-bending fusion of Afrobeats, trap, and Indian pop influences he calls Afro-rave — distinguished him immediately from contemporaries and attracted attention from international critics and artists. His 2022 album Rave and Roses confirmed him as an album artist with serious ambitions, and the inclusion of the track Calm Down — remixed in 2022 as a duet with Selena Gomez — became one of the defining global music moments of 2023. Calm Down broke records on Spotify, becoming the most streamed Afrobeats song in the platform's history at the time and the first Afrobeats track to surpass one billion streams. Rema was named Apple Music's Up Next artist, won the BET Award for Best New International Act, and became the first Nigerian artist to perform at Coachella as a solo headliner act in 2023. He has collaborated with Chris Brown, Selena Gomez, and other international stars. Still in his early twenties, he is already considered one of the most important global music artists of his generation, with a creative vision and commercial instinct that suggests a career of extraordinary longevity.
