Popular Nigerian musician, Divine Ikubor, alias Rema, has stated that regardless of what genre he and his colleagues label their musical genres, they will all gather together for award events under the afrobeats banner.
The ‘Calm Down’ crooner accepted his prize for Best Male Artiste of the Year at the 2023 Headies Awards in Sunday in Atlanta, USA.
Rema said:
“I must say it is very important that I should let everyone know that I’m not here because of the awards. I’m here because it is important to support our institutions. And when I said institutions, I mean the bodies that support you to be able to achieve these major successes; the media houses, award organisers, you know.
“We are in a very sensitive period if we don’t give our attention to our institutions, we will miss this chance that we have. And we will never have this chance again.
“Be it afrorave, afro this, afro that, last last, we go jam for afrobeats award. So, this is our chance. We [afrobeats artists] are not the first to do it. Reggae has done it before.”
His remark comes in the wake of Burna Boy and some of his colleagues criticizing the afrobeats label, claiming that they don’t want to be “boxed” and that it (afrobeats) “lacks substance.”
