Nigerian Afrobeats star Rema scored the biggest hit of his already illustrious career when he released “Calm Down” in February.
After only 10 months, it’s already among the most streamed Afrobeats songs of all time, with 200 million streams on Spotify alone.
Its global success drew the attention of Selena Gomez, who hopped on the remix in August to give the song an extra boost.
That remix is now also sitting on 200 million streams on Spotify. Both versions of the song have garnered almost half a billion cumulative streams on YouTube.
The album the song is a part of has also been a major success. “Sold out every show in the UK, Album racked a Billion streams in 8 months,” he recently shared.
“I can’t count my plaques anymore, my gang is eating good, stole your girlfriends, now I’m unto the next, luv y’all peace.✌🏾❤️.”
Sold out every show in the UK, Album racked a Billion streams in 8 months, I can’t count my plaques anymore, my gang is eating good, stole your girlfriends, now I’m unto the next, luv y’all peace.✌🏾❤️🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/93LUFNagbc
— REMA (@heisrema) November 28, 2022
The single’s global reach was in full view on Monday evening during Brazil’s World Cup knock-out fixture against South Korea.
Prior to that, it also played at the stadium in Qatar during England’s encounter with Senegal. During half-time of both games, the crowd sang word for word as it blared loudly from the stadium’s PA system.
“Qatar put their whole in crafting these world cup stadia, it could turn into a night club anytime, the world was jamming to @heisrema at halftime🤩👌.”
Qatar put their whole in crafting these world cup stadia, it could turn into a night club anytime, the world was jamming to @heisrema at halftime🤩👌 pic.twitter.com/eoARg2gwUk
— Acholi goddd (@sk_bongomin93) December 5, 2022
One of the videos have since been going viral on Twitter, which has driven Rema to the Twitter trends list.
Just last week, “Calm Down” achieved the rare feat of an afrobeats song being certified gold in the United States. It also made it onto Billboard's list of the top afrobeats songs of the year.
“Rema’s CALM DOWN is now certified Gold in the United Sates 🇺🇸 for sale of 500k+ units 🔥,” announced Rema’s label, MAVIN Records.
Rema’s CALM DOWN is now certified Gold in the United Sates 🇺🇸 for sale of 500k+ units 🔥 pic.twitter.com/yRRVW5VCEV
— MAVIN RECORDS (@MAVINRECORDS) December 1, 2022