The 19-year-old superhero kid of Mavin REMA is arguably the fastest rising artist in the Nigerian music industry.
And he has made a tremendous impact in less than one year in the game. From launching a breakout single ‘Dumebi’, becoming the
- Only Nigerian music artist to feature on Barrack Obama’s summer playlist.
- Bagging the winner of two major awards.
- Staging concerts in major cities in the world.
- Becoming the first Nigerian artist to charge a million naira and above for his first show and list goes on.
Rema is undoubtedly a brilliant artist who has managed to gather all these achievements within just 11 months.
It makes people perceive him as a lucky chap born with a silver spoon who paid to be at the top of the industry. Surely, he has the rich kid looks, but in reality, Rema is far from such speculations.
He went through a struggle to attain the status he currently holds.
Though still young, Rema’s hustle earned him enough to buy his mum a car at the age of 17 and also helped him walk his way through to one of Africa’s biggest record label, mavin records.
But how did Rema, a poor kid with no father who grew up on the streets of Benin rise to global prominence?
March 22nd makes it a year since Divine Ikubor aka Rema joined Mavin records, one of Africa’s biggest record labels.
You guess that Don Jazzy did a great job to have discovered Rema that early, well that is not exactly the case, so let’s rewind to where it all began.
Rema was born on May 1st, 2000 in Benin city, Edo state Nigeria to a father of Edo descent and a mother of Igbo descent.
And he is the 3rd son of the family. Things got tough for him when he tragically lost his father and elder brother within a short space at a young age.
He was forced to take the responsibility of taking care of his mother as the man of the house. By the time he was 11, he had discovered he could do more than just drawing comics and selling to his friends.
Rema Life In church
He had a genuine talent for music. He was good at creating melodies and writing, So he diverted his comic writing talent to songwriting.
Rema started rapping and became a solid member of 3 different music groups in church singing gospel songs.
He was the leader of the rap nation group. Because He had a passion for gospel music and dreamt of someday performing on the big stage of his church headquarters in Lagos, christ embassy.
This was when he adopted the name Rema. His pastor saw the talent in him and advised him to start writing songs. This he took heed to the advice and did so well.
The pastor also gave a prophecy that he would be great, and the whole world will listen to his music. Rema held on firmly to the prophecy, and this has been a significant source of motivation to him throughout his career.
He created a life-band in ehile group of schools where he attended secondary school in Benin. With the help of his drummer friend Osaige, the group became a solid one.
His mum supported his dream but couldn’t afford to sponsor his music career or even afford to further his education to the tertiary level.
Rema Friend Princewill Emmanuel aka Alpha P
Rema met a young singer like himself, Princewill Emmanuel a.k.a Alpha P in a religious event.
Alpha P, just like rema, had pure talents in music but wasn’t doing much with it. Rema became an inspiration to him, and they both became music partners creating a duo known as the rna group.
Alpha P did the hooks while Rema did the rap. They began putting more effort in their music career by writing, recording, and rehearsing daily.
Taking his mum’s advice of making his studies a priority, Rema did his best at school during the day and rushed down to the studio to rehearse and record with Alpha P after school hours.
He spent time listening to various genres of music, and that helped his versatility in producing dynamic sounds. The duo quickly participated in a talent show competition, dream alive talent show in 2015, and emerged winner beating many older artists. They were able to release their first music video in a single titled “Mercy“.
A song that was written to show gratitude to God for taking them this far. They even got interviewed by Channels TV and HipTV at that time.
Watcht the video below:-
Rema Early Hustling life
From the very beginning, Rema knew there was no going back from here, but there was one major problem lacked the finance to fuel his music aspiration.
His mother who was at Benin was hustling hard trekking long distances just to survive so Rema takes a bold decision it dropped all he was doing in Nigeria and traveled to Cotonou around 2016 there he worked hard and kept gathering money as well as keeping his music dream alive.
Rema Work in Ghana
Rema from Cotonou who later took a bus to ghana where he found a minimal job at the beach this young man spends his time wisely in ghana by working to make ends meet and surprisingly make time to mastered Ghanian music after a year he returned to Nigeria in 2017 and by that time was only 17 years old.
Immediately used the money he saved overtime to buy his mom an SUV just to show his support and appreciation with at least some money in his pocket to sustain him as a 17-year-old with no major responsibilities.
Draining his finance Verma had only his mom and music to focus on so he kept his hustle spirit alive the young artists spent a lot on downloaded beats and he had a producer friend who made production cheaper for him.
Rema Road to Fame
Rema kept working to make money that could see him through his studio sessions while doing all this popular OG in the ninth year music industry Dprince released a song “Gucci gang“.
And Rema caught up with a song he loved and just like he had been doing for other songs he made a freestyle cover for the song after contracting producer liquid mix to produce a remix for the song, and he posted the remix on Instagram on February 28th.
Dprince got to listen to the remix, he loved it and he called him over.
Rema meet Don Jazzy
He started recording songs in August 2018 and soon got introduced to Don Jazzy and the Mavins team.
Months later, he recorded songs like “Iron Man” and most of the songs on his 2019 EPs.
A lot was going on the ground as Rema kept learning from the then Mavin crew members like Tiwa Savage, Reekado Banks, and from Don Jazzy himself.
His meeting with these people really helped him refine his talent and brand.
Rema Signed To Mavin Records
In early 2019, he was ready for unveiling on March 22nd 2019, he was officially signed into Mavin records with enough songs to be released.
His debut song “Dumebi” topped major song charts in the country. He followed with awesome music videos and Rema soon became a phenomenon artist everyone talked about.
As Rema sound and age made him so unique in the industry he started taking media interviews his tone was quickly accepted even beyond the shores of Africa and his EP grammer picked on.
Number one on Apple Music in Nigeria he has released over fourteen tracks within eleven months of his entrance into the industry with three extended playlists.
A song Ironman appeared on Barack Obama’s summer playlist it made his debut runway work at the Lagos fashion week in November 2019.
Rema hangs out with Jaden Smith for drake Halloween bash at Delilah West Hollywood California on October 31st, 2019.
Rema Award
On October 19th, 2019 Rema went on and bagged the Next Rated Award and was nominated for viewer’s choice at the 13th edition of the Hadees’ on January 12th it receives the sound city MVP for the best new artists.
Rema Songs
Released two songs in February of 2020.
Rema “Rainbow” and “Beamer” lasted for over a week on Audiomack Top 10 Songs as well as topping the charts on other music rating platforms in Nigeria.
Rema Vision
He also has plans to use his music to influence the fashion and sports industry in Nigeria.
Without a doubt, Rema has been through the highs and lows in the industry coming out stronger and remaining focused and committed to becoming in the future of afro beats.
The bad commando believes is on this planet with a mission to take afro beats. to every part of the world until it becomes one of the desired genders of music in the world.
He is a super talented kid and if he keeps the momentum high and focuses on his music with a great team behind him then the sky is all of the starting-point.
Rema with Drake
Drake on an Instagram live said, “We have six songs together“.
The End!
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