Rema, the Nigerian singer, has boasted about being the “bridge to take African music to the rest of the world.”
In a recent interview with i-D Magazine, Rema also bragged about changing the “world’s perspective of African music.”
The 22-year-old singer said people across the world enjoy his music because he doesn’t “restrict my creativity.”
“I see myself as the bridge to take African music to the whole world. I changed the sound,” he said.
“I changed the perspective. I’m not trying to brag and I know some people might try to disagree but it’s facts. The template is mine.
“I make music for everyone, that’s why my music has a lot of global appeal. If I say I only want to make music for this kind of people, it will restrict my creativity.
“Me beyond of the spearhead as in representative of African culture has kind of given me some more responsibilities.
“I kind of feel like in the whole Afrobeats or African music Bible, this is Mathew. This is the New Testament. That’s how it kind of feels to me.
“My beat directions and my sound choices are very iconic. Some things you can’t even find using an instrument.
“People don’t even realize that some sounds in some of my instrumentals are actually my voice that has been tweaked.”
Rema, whose real name is Divine Ikubor, has been enjoying massive reception from music lovers since he came into the limelight.
‘Calm Down,’ his hit song released in February 2022, has garnered millions of streams across music platforms and won a plethora of awards.
The singer would later feature Selena Gomez, the US songstress, for the remix of the hit song in August of the same year.
It went platinum in the UK on March 3.
With over 444 million views — as of April 27 — the video of the song is the most-viewed Nigerian music video on YouTube.
It has also surpassed the record set by Ckay’s ‘Love Nwantintin’ remix.
Recently, ‘Calm Down’ became the second-longest charting no 1 African song in India.
It also made history as the highest-charting Afrobeats song on the Billboard Hot 100.
It was among the songs that featured on Barack Obama, the former US president’s favourite music of 2022.
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