Without a doubt, Rema was one of the biggest African artists on the globe in 2022. The singer released his debut album “Raves and Roses” in 2022, and the song “Calm Down” on the album sold his craft beyond borders and gained the Nigerian singer global recognition.
The beauty of “Calm Down” saw Selena Gomez jump on a remix, which has remained on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 23 consecutive weeks. Presently, the original song has over 377 million views on YouTube, while the remix with Selena has over 297 million views on the platform.
Watch Calm Down remix here:
Rema’s “Calm Down” also overtook Ckay’s “Love Nwantiti” as the most streamed Afrobeats sound on YouTube.
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During an Instagram Live session in March 2022, Rema discussed how organic his debut album is, noting that:
“I know people might be like, ‘Oh sh*t, why does Rema not have an Afrobeats artist on his album?’ I would say this: no feature on my album was based off uh, ‘hey label, I need an artist or I need an international collab,’ no. Nothing like that. Everything was organic. Every artist in my album is my friend. I don’t really like to make music with you if we’re not actually cool. I would not make music just to appease the fans, just to look like we’re not fighting. No bruh, it has to be organic. No feature on my album was forced or like me trying to look international or cross boundaries. Nah, I already crossed that in 2019.’’
Despite not featuring the big names in Afrobeat, Rema hit a remarkable height in 2022 by becoming the latest African artist with over 1 billion streams across different platforms.
Rema’s achievements in 2022 have put great expectations on him. It remains to be seen if he will build on the successes recorded in 2022 and become even bigger in 2023.