Rema becomes First African Artist to perform at Ballon d’OR

Rema becomes the First African Artist to perform at Ballon d’OR

It appears Rema has no intention of ever “calming down”. The global superstar just added another streak to his record-breaking career

Rema is the First African Artist to Perform at the Ballon d’OR

On October 30, 2023, the annual Ballon d’Or award presented by the French News Magazine France Football, held in Paris, with attendance of the greatest football players alive. Football stars like Eric Haaland, Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi were nominees of the award, with Messi later winning it.

Everyone was genuinely surprised on social media when Rema posted a video of himself performing at the Ballon d’OR, as it was not announced earlier that he would be performing at the event. As he performed, he would later step down to shake the hands of Eric Haaland and Mbappe.

The audience got delighted to see the young star perform his global hit song “Calm Down”, which stayed atop the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 for several weeks, becoming the longest-charting and highest-charting African song.

Since the inception of the award, no African artist has ever performed or headlined he event, making Rema become the first African artist to perform at the Ballon d’OR.

Overall, Rema has been one of the most successful music stars in the world in 2023, with Spotify monthly listeners over 33 million.

He also just recently released his Extended Play Ravage EP.

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Profile

Divine Ikubor (born 1 May 2000), popularly known by his stage name Rema is a Nigerian rapper, singer, songwriter and stage perfomer. He rose to stardom with the release of the song “Iron Man”. In 2019, he signed a record deal with Jonzing World, a subsidiary of Mavin Records.

In 2018, Rema, posted a viral freestyle on Instagram to D’Prince’s track “Gucci Gang”.

The post caught the attention of D’Prince who flew him to Lagos to offer a record deal to the young talent.

Rema signed a record deal with D’Prince’s Jonzing World, a subsidiary of Mavin Records owned by record producer Don Jazzy, in 2019.

He went on to release his self-titled debut EP “Rema” in 2019, which peaked at number 1 on Apple Music Nigeria.

On 21 May 2019, Jonzing World, and Mavin’s released the music video of “Dumebi”, a major breakout song from his self-titled EP, featuring a cameo appearance from Diana Eneje. The video was directed by Ademola Falomo.

In May 2021, Rema announced he will be calling his sound “Afrorave”, a subgenre of Afrobeats with influences of Arabian and Indian music which has led to him having one of the strongest fanbase in the country known as Ravers.

In September 2021 Rema was unveiled as a brand ambassador for the popular soft drink Pepsi alongside his label mate Ayra Starr

After Rema signed a record deal with Jonzing World, in 2019, he released his debut EP Rema. After two more EPs, he released his debut album Rave & Roses on 25 March 2022.

The album includes 16 tracks and features from 6lack, Chris Brown, AJ Tracey, and Yseult.

The album charted 10 songs on the US Billboard Afrobeats Chart following its debut week.

His single “Calm Down”, including a sample from fellow Nigerian artist Crayon’s track “So Fine”,then began charting five months after its official release.

The next august 26th of 2022, the singer released a remix of his song Calm down with the singer Selena Gomez.