Artists to Watch
Ten new musicians who are breaking through the noise, making hits, and reshaping pop, hip-hop, Latin, country, and more in 2020.
A 19-year-old charmer from Nigeria who makes irresistible
pop-rap hits
when rema thinks about the past two years of his life, a time in which he’s rocketed from Benin City, Nigeria, to global stardom, he’s reminded of the biblical story of David. “He took care of the sheep,” says the 19-year-old rapper and singer, citing the ways he’s tried to provide for the other artists in his hometown. “On the fateful day David went to give food to his brothers and he saw Goliath, that was the same way I fought through all my struggles.”
It started in 2018, when Rema — real name Divine Ikubor — recorded a viral freestyle over “Gucci Gang,” a local hit by Nigerian artist D’Prince. Sitting in a car, wearing a maroon jacket, the self-proclaimed “modernworld David” delivered a sequence of rapid bars, punctuated by spurts of melody, that’s since been viewed nearly 500,000 times on Instagram. Soon, he had a string of hits that have made him one of the most exciting acts in the ascendant Afrobeats genre, with a signature sound that combines comic-book references, teenage jealousy, trap beats, and melodic avalanches. It’s a blend that’s caught the attention of everyone from Drake’s manager, Oliver El-Khatib, to
Barack Obama, who put Rema’s irresistibly catchy “Iron Man” on his 2019 Summer Playlist.
“I don’t know anybody in the White House or in the American government,” Rema says in disbelief. “How did my music walk so far to his doorstep?”
Rema first got into music at Benin City’s Christ Embassy church, where he was a youth leader for a program that taught kids how to rap for the congregation. “If I look back, I wasn’t really that good,” he says. In 2008, Rema’s father died; seven years later, so did Rema’s brother. The financial hardship those losses placed on him, his mother, and two sisters led to a yearlong move to Ghana. “No money was coming in,” he says. “We were hungry. I was the only man in the house. I had to do something.”
Once he was back in Benin City, he set about making music that drew on the secular influences he’d absorbed during his year in Ghana. The day after his “Gucci Gang” freestyle hit Instagram, he received a call from D’Prince, who invited him to Lagos, Nigeria, and signed him to a record deal. “I was like, ‘This is my only chance,’ ” Rema says. “I had to prove myself.”
Even as his career keeps growing — his biggest hit, the bubbly, melodic “Dumebi,” has been streamed 68 million times — Rema is still adjusting to his newfound fame and wealth. “I try and stay away from people,” Rema says. “It’s not because I’m proud. It’s because I’m shy. I have a lot inside me, but sometimes I can’t actually speak.”
CHARLES HOLMES