Afrobeats VS Amapiano: Rema sends message to colleagues

By Taiwo Okanlawon

Nigeria singer, Divine Ikubor, popularly known as Rema, has harped on the need for Nigerian artistes to maintain Afrobeats’ culture to ensure the country’s dominance of the African music scene.

There has been a heavy infiltration of South African genre, Amapiano into the Nigerian music industry in recent years.

Speaking in an interview with Apple Music, Rema admitted that Amapiano is a great genre but maintained that Nigerian artists must sustain Afrobeats’ influence on the continent.

The Mavin Records signee noted that his recently-released sophomore album, ‘HeIs,’ was heavily inspired by afrobeats legends like Don Jazzy and the Mo’hits crew, 2Baba, Olamide, P-Square and Timaya.

“I had to go back [while creating my new album]. I took a lot of inspiration from Mo’hits. For the first four seconds, when a Mo’hits’ song comes in, you already know it’s a Mo’hits’ song. Don Jazzy just goes crazy on the beat,” he said.

“The times when Olamide used to drop crazy songs, he still drops crazy songs. At the time when an Olamide song comes on you still know. P-Square, 2Face or Timaya. There used to be times when the beat just…

“Amapiano is great, it is fire but there used to be a time when Afrobeats production used to be so insane that nothing can survive it in the clubs in Africa. I’m not saying we’ve lost that but I’m just saying that we need more of that. I don’t want us to go too far away from that. We need to sustain it.”