Why Church instigated cancellation of Rema’s concert in Ethiopia

By Victoria Oluwayemi

Barely a week after he received three awards at the 2023 Headies Awards, Nigeria’s music superstar, Divine Ikubor, aka Rema billed has run into a headwind in Ethiopia with the cancellation of his concert.

The Concert was billed for the Sheraton hotel in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia today, September 9, 2023 was cancelled at the behest of the the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

The Church had reportedly put pressure on the management of Sheraton Hotel in Addis Ababa to cancel the concert over the picture of Rema used in the poster deployed for the advertisement of the show, an Ethiopian woman disclosed in an interview with Nigerian media personality, Daddy Freeze.

According to the woman, the concert was cancelled by the hotel management after the country’s “powerful” Orthodox Church leaders accused the singer of being a “devil worshipper” over his customized necklace.

In the artwork used for the concert, Rema wore a customised necklace that had a burning church and inverted crosses.

She said, “They made a statement, like a press release in Ethiopia about Rema. Yes, you can imagine, it’s a very big deal.

“They’re basically saying he is worshipping the devil because of what he has on his neck. And to be honest, I never thought of it myself. And there’s more to it; to be honest.”

Meanwhile, a lady was seen defacing Rema’s Addis Ababa concert poster in a video making the rounds on social media.

The cancellation of the concert will no doubt be a bump of the shining musical career of Rema who recently won best male artist, digital artiste of the year and African artiste of the year in the 2023 Headies Award held in the US.

Rema has gained global renown as an afrobeat musical artiste with the release of his hit single ‘Calm Down’.

The remix Calm Down with Selena Gomez has also catapulted Rema to the top of the charts across the world.

For one, Rema entered the Guinness Book Records as the first artist to top the inaugural Middle Eastern and North Africa (MENA)’.

The single was released in February 2022 has also set a record as the highest-charting African song on the Billboard Hot 100 with a number 6 entry.

Rema has also received multiple awards across the world over the single.

In Nigeria, ‘Calm Down’ has surpassed 2 billion streams across all platforms.