How does it feel to walk on stage and face 20,000 fans just five years into your career? Ask Rema, the boy from Nigeria turned Afrobeats star who filled London’s O2 Arena on Tuesday night – the kind of feat it took genre peers Wizkid and Burna Boy a decade to achieve.
If the 23-year-old – real name Divine Ikubor – was daunted by the occasion, you couldn’t tell. Arriving half an hour late to a fanfare of flames, strobes, horns, and searing guitar riffs, Rema emerged on stage in a black cape and fragmented Benin ivory mask astride a silver carousel horse, and set off an explosion of rhythm that lasted for almost two hours.
It was a long set for an artist with just one album to his name – Rave & Roses, released last year – but Rema is not short of hits. Flung from obscurity to viral fame in 2018 with a freestyle rap video, within a year he had a record deal and a spot on Obama’s annual playlist: “How did my music walk so far to his doorstep?” he wondered at the time. His 2022 single Calm Down achieved a billion streams, while the remix with Selena Gomez reached No1 in nine countries and won the inaugural Afrobeats award at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards.
These triumphs were reflected in the high-budget show, with Rema bolstered – yet sometimes overpowered – by an extensive live band, hype man, flamboyant dancers, confetti cannons, pyrotechnics, and costume changes. After opening with a track from his latest EP, Ravage, followed by Obama’s aforementioned favourite, Iron Man, and several lascivious numbers, Rema reappeared for the second section of the show atop an enormous animatronic bat – his signature emoji – suspended above the stage: a feature clearly designed to impress but seemed more a gimmicky distraction from his natural talent and charisma.
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