Rema, a Nigerian afrobeats artist, has become a worldwide sensation during the past year. He had admirers all around the world and was already well-known in the music industry, but working with American artist Selena Gomez on the remix of his hit song “Calm Down” propelled him to new heights.
As one of the lead singles for Rema’s debut studio album “Rave & Roses” in February 2022, “Calm Down” was released. Rema invited Selena Gomez for the remix, which was eventually released a few months later in August 2022. The song became an instant hit all over the world.
The “Calm Down” remix has received over two billion streams worldwide, making it the most streamed song to ever originate from the continent. Since its release, it has also ranked among the songs that are streamed the most globally. Gomez took to Instagram over the weekend to express her gratitude to Rema as the song gets closer to becoming one of the biggest hits of her career as well.
“This man has changed my life forever. Rema, thank you for choosing me to be apart of one of the biggest songs in the world. Love you forever. @heisrema”
Rema replied, “Love you too queen,” in the comments. “Calm Down” recently broke the record for the longest African song to rank on the Billboard Hot 100. The record was previously held by Wizkid’s “Essence” with Tems and Justin Bieber, which spent 35 weeks on the illustrious list. It is also currently the most watched afrobeats video on YouTube with over 490 million views.
Rema will undoubtedly now be focusing on chasing down “Jerusalema” by Master KG and Nomcebo Zikode for the title of most-watched African music video of all time.
At this time, “Jerusalem” has received 566 million views.
