LONDON, UK – NOVEMBER 14: Rema performs at the O2 Arena in London on November 14, 2023. [+] England. (Photo: Joseph Okpako/WireImage)
Wire image
It was the global blockbuster of 2023. With viral TikTok clips, captivating Instagram Reels, constant radio play at home and abroad, a party staple and record-breaking milestones, the song was bound to make history in some way. Afrobeat sensation Rema and his hit song “Calm Down” have left their mark on the music world, epitomizing the natural global appeal of the Afrobeat genre.
Earlier this week, the song made history by surpassing 1 billion streams in the US, making it the first Afrobeat song to reach that milestone.
On Sunday (June 16), X-based music analytics platform Chart Data unearthed the landmark news for the Edo State-born artiste: “REMA’s ‘Calm Down’ becomes the first Afrobeats song in history to surpass 1 billion on-demand streams in the United States.”
This means that “Calm Down” has been played more than 1 billion times across streaming services at listener request — the definition of “on-demand.” This includes platforms like Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music, as well as user-generated content.
This Nigerian jam single was released in February 2022 as the second single from Rema’s debut album, Rave & Roses, his most notable work with Mavin Records to date. The track has seen gradual success. Despite being released in 2022 to moderate success, the mellow song has skyrocketed in popularity in 2023, garnering much praise.
The single’s official music video currently has over 596 million views and won the 2023 Headies Award for Best Music Video. However, the song achieved a new level of success when Selena Gomez participated in a remix of the viral Afrobeat song, or rather (what Rema has dubbed Afrowave, a distinct subgenre of this epic genre pioneered by Nigerian maestro Fela Kuti) The remix featuring Gomez was released in the summer of 2022, six months after the initial single, and the act helped the song receive international acclaim.
Gomez’s music videos have now been viewed over 896 million times.
In an interview with Cool FM Nigeria that year, Rema explained how this deep collaboration came about noting that the “Love On” singer was a fan of his music, revealing Gomez’s vibrant musical taste and his comfort level in pursuing the collaboration.
“For Selena Gomez, these features are sometimes a shock and people think, ‘Oh, the label is trying to do that,'” Rema said. “Me and Selena have been in contact since about 2020. She was like, ‘Oh, I’m a huge fan of your music,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, me too. I’ve been watching you on TV since I was a kid,’ so we just kept in touch.”
“So I kept it going for a long time, and then a while after ‘Calm Down’ came out I spoke to her, and I was like, ‘Hey, my song ‘Calm Down’ is doing really well. I don’t know if you’ve heard it,’ and she was like, ‘Yeah, I love it. I love the song.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind you being on the remix,’ and she was like, ‘What? Oh yeah, great.’ So she did, and then our teams started keeping in touch, but it was just the two of us,” he continued.
Rema and Selena Gomez attended the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards held at the Prudential Center on September 12… [+] Newark, New Jersey, 2023. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Variety via Getty Images)
Variety via Getty Images
The remix racked up numerous achievements, including becoming the first African artist-led track to reach one billion streams on Spotify, the first African song to spend a full year on the Billboard Hot 100, and the highest-charting hit by an Afrobeats lead artist in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. It also won notable awards, including the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards for Best Collaboration, the 2023 Billboard Music Awards for Top Afrobeats Song, the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Afrobeats, and the 2023 African Entertainment Awards USA Song of the Year.
The song became the artist’s first No. 1 hit on the Official MENA Charts in 2022, and the following year it became the artist with the most weeks at No. 1 on the same chart, breaking the Guinness World Record for the second time.
The song’s absence from the 2024 Grammy nominations has caused huge disappointment all over the world. Rema had vowed to win the award earlier this year. However, this outcome is out of his control. Overall, after the show, the song is expected to continue to be popular on streaming platforms and will once again be on the big summer stage.
